I'm Not Schizophrenic
by Nightmare Before Halloween
Summary: A not-so-innocent visit to a "haunted house" turns Terra Benson's life upside down, and now there's this: Somebody is framing her for turning mortals and demigods into ghosts, dead or not. Rated T for swearing. Post TLO. Reviewers and CCers get cookies.
1. I'm Not Schizophrenic

Afraid of Ghosts

_Creak._

_ Creak._

I rolled onto my back, scowling. Stupid old staircase. I couldn't last one day without hearing them creak as somebody (or something) walks up the stairs.

I looked at the alarm clock. Seven a. m. on a cold, winter weekend. I pressed my palm against my forehead, trying to sleep. It was the weekend, for Pete's sake. I was supposed to be staying up until three in the morning, and sleep until two in the afternoon.

But _no._ My ADHD was on over-drive, and the pills I had weren't working. I rolled onto my side, rubbing my eyes. Where the heck was sleep when you needed it?

_Creak._

"Oh Lord," I grumbled, and sat up. "Who the heck is there? Anybody? If you want to talk to me, that's fine. Just stop stepping all over the stairs and actually come into my room."

No answer. My eyes narrowed, and I slowly slipped out of bed. Maybe it was just my over-active mind. Maybe it was the mass overload of coffee and soda I had this afternoon. Maybe it was my annoying step-mother, stepping all over the stairs in those three-inch high heels that looked like they could gouge your eyes out. I reached for the doorknob hesitantly, trying not to widen my eyes like those stupid dramatic scary movies. I really hated that stuff.

My hand rested on the doorknob for a moment. I looked around the dark room (although I had my nightlight on, but I'm fourteen years old and afraid of the dark), and inhaled. I turned the knob and threw the door open.

Nobody. It was slightly dark, but I could swear that I saw a figure moving in the half-open door of the dark bathroom. Oh well. Probably just my stupid ADHD mind. Trying to shrug off my paranoia, I walked back into my room, shutting the door behind me, and sat down on my bed. I really, _really_ need to stop reading all of those scary books. Maybe I should tear down that weird picture of Hades, god of the Underworld, that stared back at me when ever I was lying in bed, staring at the wall. Or the Edward Cullen poster my sister had posted up when she'd had this room.

I really think it should be Edward.

* * *

"Terra? Terra, wake up."

"Ughh...." I groaned, opening one eye as I rubbed the other. My father hovered over me, with the same black hair and dark eyes that I had. He looked tired, and much older than he was supposed to be. Maybe it was just being a math teacher. "What goin' on?"

My dad blinked, probably unable to say anything for a moment. "Comfortable, Terra?"

"What?" I shifted uncomfortably. I stopped rubbing my eye and reached towards my head to touch the pillow. Instead, I touched the dresser.

"You're on the floor."

Thank you, Captain Obvious. I sat up, groaning, and nearly bumped my head on the dresser.

"We should, like, tie you to the bed or something, Terra. Maybe that will stop you from rolling off it so many times."

I looked up at my father as I untangled myself from my blanket. "Are you... making fun of me, Dad? It sounds like it."

He scoffed and walked out of the room, leaving me to untangle myself from my blanket. After accomplishing that feat, I walked to the bathroom and brushed my teeth, and did all of that regular morning stuff. As soon as I stepped onto the first step on the staircase on my way downstairs, it creaked.

_Creak._

I scowled, mainly out of irritation, but partially because it reminded me of last night. "Will somebody _please_ fix this creak? I feel like it's only here to annoy me."

"_Honestly, that creak has been there for over half a century, my dear. Do you think it will go away that easily?_"

I frowned, and turned in a complete circle. "Who's there?"

"_Boo._"

"Boo wh--- HEY, WAIT A MINUTE!" I shook my fist at the ceiling. "STUPID VOICES! I'M NOT SCHIZOPHRENIC! NOT SCHIZOPHRENICCCCCCCCC!"

"Er, Terra?"

I turned back to the staircase slowly, and there was my dad, standing on the staircase with a confused look on his face. "Uh... Hi, Daddy."

"Did you hit your head on your dresser when you rolled off your bed?"

".... No?"

My dad nodded slowly, and walked back downstairs.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes. "Stupid voices. You guys can never leave me alone."

"_You're welcome, Terra._"

"AAGH, NOW YOU FREAKING KNOW MY NAME?!"

Well, that morning was sort of fun. After breakfast, I went outside and walked three blocks to an old, abandoned house, where my friends, Harold Van Horn and Nina Juarez, stood waiting. We'd planned a break-in to the old Halloway house, since it supposedly was haunted, and Nina and Harold wanted to see if it really was haunted.

I was the unfortunate child that was dragged along.

Harold, with his awkward-looking legs and scruffy brown hair and stubble, looked pretty darn old for a fourteen year old. He grinned at me, waving enthusiastically as I walked over. "Ready to pull a 'Ghostbusters' and break into the old Halloway house? I mean, seriously, it's probably haunted and stuff and nobody would care if it was broken into since it already has been a lot of times, and and and---"

I sighed. "You're getting really over-enthusiastic about this, Harold."

"But this is cool!" he whined, shifting around and acting all fidgety and excited.

"Of course it is," Nina muttered, rolling her eyes. She was the skeptic one, of course, because she was skeptical of everything that really didn't have much logic. Skeptic of the skeptical. Skeptical of the skeptics.

I'll stop now.

"LET'S GO!" Harold ran for the house at the speed of a track star, even though his legs were ridiculously awkward-looking, and they looked way too thin to run like that. Nina and I glanced at each other, then ran after him.

By the time Nina and I reached the front porch, Harold was pushing the door open and running inside, yelling, "WOOT! THIS LOOKS LIKE DRACULA'S CASTLE!"

"Come on, Harold," Nina whined, "wait for us. We're not superheroes."

Harold stopped, and his face darkened. "At least, you don't know."

I stopped too. "What?"

"Er, nothing. Carry on, Terra. Nina."

Blinking, I took a cautious step forward. "Looks nice for a place that was abandoned twenty years ago."

"Harold and I will take the downstairs area," Nina told me. "You can take upstairs."

I looked at her, all stunned and surprised and stuff. "What? B-b-but---"

Nina gave me a funny look. "What? Are you afraid of the dark?"

"I... uh...." I stood up a bit straighter. "No. Nothing. I'll be fine."

Nina nodded at me, and walked towards Harold, who was busy admiring a dusty picture of a rose on the wall.

I stared after her for a moment. I was _so_ screwed, damn it. I looked up at the staircase, and took a few cautious steps up the staircase. No creaking. Well, that was a change. With renewed excitement, I charged up the stairs and into the nearest room, which happened to be a bedroom.

Ew.

Well, this was a change from the dark scenery downstairs. The room was entirely pink. The bed, which was about as high as my thighs, was covered with flowery blankets, with a pink pillow at the head of the bed. A teddy-bear sat on the dusty pillow, leaning to the side and looking abandoned and faded with age.

I looked around. There was a dusty dresser, dusty slippers on the floor, an old book with half the pages torn out. A spider scurried over the slipper and under the bed. "Looks like my kind of bedroom," I muttered sarcastically, moving the teddy bear so that it was sitting up correctly.

"_You shouldn't be touching my stuff._"

I tensed. "Nina, whatever you're doing, stop it."

_"My name is Emily, you idiot. Now get out of my room._"

What the heck? I turned slowly. A transparent-looking girl in a pale dress stood in the doorway of the room, her blond hair tied up into a ponytail. Her eyes were glowing green, which was sort of funny, since humans didn't have those kinds of eyes.

"_Get out of my room,_" she ordered, scowling.

I turned away, waving my hand. "You're probably an illusion. Like the other ones. I've seen _things_ like you before. My parents think I'm schizophrenic or something. And delusional."

Of course I wasn't surprised. Why would I be? Ever since I was five, I'd been hearing these voices, responding, and sometimes saw the thing that was speaking. It had wiped all the surprise I had for these events away from my mind like dust on a windy day.

In other words, these sightings were really common for me. Surprise, surprise.

"_Get. Out._"

I turned and stuck out my tongue at the girl in the doorway. "Make me, O scary figure in the doorway."

The girl snarled angrily. "_Of course you wouldn't leave. Your mother was wise to have abandoned you."_

"_What? _Are you, like, my idiotic side or something? I'm not that stupid. My real mother died a couple days after I was born."

The girl grinned. "_Or did she, Terra?"_

I waved the girl-thing away. "Get out of here. I don't need to be tossed into therapy again."

"_Get out of my room._"

I rolled my eyes. "Make me."

"If you say so...." the girl murmured, and smiled widely.

Something hit the back of my head. I turned, and the teddy bear was on the bed, but not on the pillow.

"What the freak?" I muttered.

Something moved in the dark room. A figure, like a tall man.

"_We don't take kindly to mortals messing with our home,_" the figure said, shifting again. _"But you're an exception. A rude one, I may say. Melinoe would not be happy with us if we beat up her-- her, eh, niece?"_

"Who the freak is Melinoe?"

The girl looked past me, right at the figure in the dark corners of the room. "_Told you she'd be stupid, Daddy._"

"What? HEY! YOU'RE ALL PROBABLY ILLUSIONS! MAYBE I AM SCHIZOPHRENIC! Now, pick up your stupid asses and LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"Terra?" Harold called. I listened as he began climbed the stairs. "Terra, are you alright?"

The girl and the figure looked at each other, and then I blinked. They were gone.

"Terra? Where are you?"

"In the nearest room to the stairs, Harold." I scowled. Maybe I was just, like, imagining things.

"There you are." Harold poked his head into the doorway. "You alright? You were screaming up quite a storm in here."

My face darkened. "Well, now I really think I'm schizophrenic. I kept hearing these, like, voices in here, and they just...."

"Who are 'they'?"

"You wouldn't understand."

"Then make me understand, Terra. You can tell me. I won't tell your parents or Nina."

I sighed, lowering my eyes. "Well, I just touched the teddy bear.... Then this, like, transparent little girl appeared in the doorway. We argued for a bit, and then her 'daddy' appeared. He mentioned Melinoe or something. Do you know who she is?"

When I looked up, Harold looked pale. "Er, yes. Yes I do," he replied. "She's a good friend of mine. But that d-doesn't matter. W-we should leave."

I frowned. "But it was your idea to come here. Don't you still want to, like, see if this place is haunted?"

Harold shook his head vigorously. "Nina has enough evidence to be un-skeptical. Now, let's go, shall we?"

I shrugged as he began descending the stairs again, and sighed.

I'm going insane. Somebody _PLEASE_ put me out of my misery.


	2. This Neighborhood Smells Funny

AOG 2

School. The terror of every child who goes to school on this planet, the one thing that usually gets us kids grounded (besides talking back to your parents, robbing a store, etc).

Sadly, I had school today; that means in three hours from now, I had to get up, brush my teeth, do all of that morning stuff, and walk to school with Nina and Harold.

Of course, I had barely slept because of the little visit to the abandoned house, and now I really knew it was haunted. Either that or I was going crazy.

"_You're so stupid sometimes, Terra. Visiting a haunted house with your little friends? I'm not sure how you made it out alive with what's happening in the Underworld."_

"I don't care," I muttered. "Just shut up and leave me alone. And I don't care about this Underworld of yours."

"_No. You."_

I covered my ears with my hands and whispered, "Lalala. I'm not listening."

"_Bother bother bother bother bother bother bothe--"_

"Shut up!" I snarled loudly.

"_There's the Terra I know and love."_

"I don't love you," I hissed under my breath, and covered my head with my blanket. The stupid Edward Cullen poster was staring back at me like a pedophile.

"_You are _so _schizophrenic."_

"You're the one talking to me!" I growled, and got out of bed.

"_What the hell are you doing?_"

"Tearing down Eddie," I muttered, and walked up to the Edward Cullen poster. It stared back at me with hungry-looking eyes. I scoffed at how my sister loved him, and grasped the top of the poster. Sighing, I tore it down and crumpled the poster into a ball, and tossed it into the trash can. "Praise the Lord for trash cans."

"_You mean 'Praise the Fates.'"_

"I don't honor the Greek gods you're so obsessed with. Cue the Mariah Carey song."

"_Ew. Even though I'm supposed to be ninety-seven and a half years old, that song is terrible."_

"Wow. I'm amazed that you're agreeing with me for once, voice in my head." I slipped back into bed and pulled the blanket up to my chin, sighing.

There was a knock on the door. My step-mother, Alexandra, opened the door. She was probably nine years younger than my dad, and she was really pretty. The only thing I hated about her was her nerve; she'd just waltzed into my life out of the blue, and then there was the fact that my father proposed to her only a few weeks ago, and ever since then my father had been forcing me to call her "Mom," even though it sounded foreign on my tongue.

"Are you talking to yourself again?" she asked, frowning. I could see her engagement ring from here, even in the dark. She glanced at my nightlight and probably thought, _Wow. What a sissy._

I rolled my eyes. "Yes. I'm talking to mysterious spirits from the afterlife. Right now, I'm talking to your dead mother."

"But... my mother isn't dead."

I sat up and widened my eyes for dramatic effect. "How do _you_ know that? For all you know, she can be having a heart-attack right now in her house. Better go call her and see if she's alright."

"I just called her, Terra."

"But it's right now."

"You're not serious."

"_But she is!"_ cackled the mysterious voice in my head. "_By the way, I am not Alexandra's mother. I'm the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come."_

I rolled my eyes. "Shut up, Bob."

"_Darn it._"

"Do I need to get you another session with Dr. Holmes?" Alexandra sighed, shaking her head. "Sometimes, you really make your father worry about you. Everybody thinks you're schizophrenic."

"I am _not _schizophrenic! I'm not crazy, God damn it! I just can't stop these voices!"

"That's schizophrenia. Trust me, I'm a psychiatrist."

"Why should I trust you?!" I screamed. "You just happened to walk into my life at the wrong time! Now you think I'm schizophrenic and should be tossed into a few more sessions with our local psychiatrist! Let me tell you, I'm not going back there, even if Dr. Holmes gives me cookies. EVER!"

"You've got temper problems, kid," Alexandra muttered, and shut the door.

"_I have to agree._"

I groaned and threw the blanket over my face.

A few sleepless hours later.....

_Beep. Beep. Beep._

_ "Wake up, you lazy bum. Time for school._"

I groaned and looked at the clock. Six o'clock. "You had to tell me, didn't you?"

"_Well, wake up, sunshine! Don't keep that backpack waiting! School is full of knowledge and other cool stuff."_

"The only cool stuff at school is my friends." I got up, brushed my teeth and hair, and changed into a simple blue t-shirt and jeans.

No need to dress fancy for school, eh?

As soon as I stepped onto the first step on my way downstairs, there _it_ was again.

_Creak._

My eye twitched. "Dad?"

"Yes, Terra?" he called from downstairs.

"Is there some way to get rid of this creak in the stairs?"

"Nope."

I groaned and continued to walk downstairs, each step creaking like an old, rusty door.

Of course, my dad was watching the news. Alexandra was probably in the kitchen, cooking pancakes.

It's not like I liked her stupid pancakes or ate any food she cooked, anyway.

"You ready for school?" My father looked at me from the couch. He was already dressed: dress pants, clean white shirt, a Snoopy tie. He pointed to my backpack. "I checked your homework. You're lucky your math teacher doesn't collect and check your homework; nearly everything on that piece of paper was wrong."

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever, Dad. I'll be walking to school with Nina and Harold. You'd better get going; if you're late again, your first period class is going to miss that test."

His eyes widened, and he leaped off the couch. "Oh yeah! Thanks for reminding me."

I grinned sadistically. "No problem."

"_Houston, we have a problem._"

"What now?" I hissed under my breath.

"_I ran out of Underworld toilet paper._"

I rolled my eyes as I opened the closet door and took out my jacket. I pulled it on and grabbed my book bag.

"Why are you leaving so early?" my father asked, frowning at me as he readjusted his jacket sleeves.

"Nina, Harold, and I are planning to walk like slugs today."

"Slugs don't walk!" Alexandra called from the kitchen.

"Nobody asked you!" I yelled back. I looked at my dad, who was scowling at me. "Sorry. Had to do that."

"That was really rude. Can't you at least try to get to know her?"

"No."

My father sighed and walked out of the door. I slung my book bag over my shoulder and glanced at the kitchen again. Well, at least Alexandra wasn't walking towards me with a hot pan.

I chuckled to myself. That would be a funny sight....

"_Earth to Terra. You're going to be late for your slug-walking, even though slugs don't walk."_

I rolled my eyes and walked out of the door, shutting it behind me. Ah, the sun was shining, the birds were chirping....

I'd do anything to crawl under a really big rock right now.

"_Got any cash?_"

"You're a voice in my head, Bob. Why the hell would you need cash?"

_ "I-D-K. My BFF Jill."_

"You sicken me," I grumbled, and began walking down the block. Harold was sitting at on the front porch of his house a few houses down, probably waiting for me.

Harold's solemn face broke out into a grin as he noticed me walking towards him. "Hey Terra! How was another day with Alexandra?"

"You don't want to know," I muttered. "She treats me like I'm three."

"_You certainly act like you're three._"

"Shut up, Bob!" I snarled.

"Terra, seriously. I think you should be tossed into the loony bin again."

I glared at him. "Don't even mention that place."

Harold grinned and stood, then took a few awkward steps forward. His thick brown hair was covered with a beanie. "Sorry, Terra. Didn't remember."

"Of course you didn't," I said under my breath, and turned away. We walked in silence for a block or two, and we found Nina pacing her driveway, muttering things under her breath.

"We come in peace," Harold told her, holding up his hand in a funny way.

Nina glared at him. Her dark brown hair was tied back into a ponytail, and her dark brown eyes flashed angrily. For some reason, they looked... not human. "You're not an alien, Harold. Let's just get to school."

"Sheesh, you've got a temper. Is it your time of month?"

Nina scowled. "I don't want to know how you know about that."

I stifled a snicker and watched as Nina walked past us and towards the next block. I looked at Harold, who looked a bit pale, and followed Nina.

"T-Terra?" Harold asked.

"Hmm?" I looked at him as he chewed nervously on his shirt sleeve. "Something up?"

"Er, well.... Do you think we could take another way? Like, meet up with Nina, only we take different routes?"

"Why? Does Nina scare you?"

"Er...." Harold blushed, then shook his head. "No. Not at all. I just want to see if there's another way to get to school."

"_You should listen to him._"

"Nina's my friend," I growled under my breath. "There's no way I'm going to leave her to be preyed on by a pedophile."

"_Suit yourself."_

I looked at a random house as Harold and I followed Nina. It was one of the abandoned ones, the ones that were supposed to be torn down "soon". I blinked. Something moved in the dark windows, behind the curtains. A shadow even darker than the darkness inside the house.

Weird.

"Can we go?" Harold asked me, tugging on my jacket sleeve. "I don't like this neighborhood. It smells funny."

I sniffed the air. "It smells fine for a place full of abandoned houses."

"Please?" he begged. "I just don't like it here."

I nodded. "I don't either."

"_You kidding me, Terra? This is my kind of place!"_

"Hey, Nina...." I sped up behind her, and had to jog to keep up with her. "Can we take another route?"

Nina gave me a hard, cold look. "Why? We're near school already."

"Er.... Are you OK?" I asked.

"Yes. I'm quite sure I am, last time I checked."

Harold jogged up behind me, and reached past my shoulder to grasp Nina's arm. "Nina, this is baaaaad. We can't stay here.... Too many of … them."

"Them?" I looked at Harold. "This sounds like a stupid scary movie. Who are 'them'?"

Nina looked at Harold, and stopped walking. She sighed, and shook her head. "I don't see what you mean, Harold. Just because we're in one of the oldest neighborhoods in town doesn't mean that the 'them' you mentioned are here."

"You can't see them!" Harold told her in a strained whisper. "O-only Terra can...."

"I can?" I gave him a funny look.

"_She can? Oh wait, she can!"_

"Who can I see?"

Nina looked at me, and dropped her book bag on the ground. "How many of 'them' do you smell, Harold? One? Two? I can take them."

Harold stared past Nina's shoulder, his eyes wide and blank. "I.... I...."

"Spit it out, Harry," I told him gently, punching his forearm.

"I can't see them," Harold told us quietly, "but I can tell you that a huge giant is coming towards us."


	3. Run Like Hell

AOG 3

"A _what?_" I stared at Harold, eyes widened. I seriously was confused. "Who the freak was 'them'? What giant? Why does the neighborhood smell funny? Come on, stop messing with me!"

"_I'm afraid they're not, sweetheart. But that's life._"

"Don't you _dare_ call me 'sweetheart', Bob," I growled under my breath.

"_Touchy touchy._"

Harold slowly turned his head to look at Nina, his eyes wide with fear. "What do we do? We can't run; somebody will think we're skipping or something."

"School doesn't matter anymore," Nina told him quietly, and slowly knelt down on one knee to dig through her book bag. "Right now, all that matters is getting our butts back to camp. And staying alive is just another chore for us to do."

"What camp?" I asked, looking between Nina and Harold. Both of them, however, were looking either into a backpack or at the ground. "Come on, guys! We're going to be late for school or something. My dad and Alexandra are going to murder me if they find out we're skipping."

Nina paused and looked up at me. "Since when have you worried about Alexandra's opinion? This matter is so much more important."

"What matter?"

Nina looked into her backpack, and her face brightened immediately. "Here it is! My sword."

"_Sword?_ You have to be freaking kidding me, Nina. Nobody carries _swords_ anymore!"

Harold looked up at me, and proceeded to shove me back a few steps. "I suggest you step back and let us do the dirty work, ma'am."

"Hey!" I protested. "What? What are you talking about?"

"Tell her later," Nina told him, and took out a flash drive.

"Why the hell are you pulling out your flash drive?!" I nearly screamed at her. "What are you going to do, upload information into some laptop that's going to pop out of nowhere?"

Harold looked at me, then Nina, who nodded. He stepped in front of me, and blocked my view of Nina.

"Hey! What the hell are you doing?" I shrieked. "This is no time to be hiding stuff from me! I have the right to know what's going on!"

"Later," Nina told me, but I could tell she was impatient. There was a click as she opened her flash drive, and looked down the road.

I followed her gaze. A large person was lumbering down the street towards us, with large muscular arms and a shiny, shiny bald head. He/she/it was really tall, and a deep chuckle drifted down the road and towards us. I shuddered. Why did it sound so weird?"

"You put good fight up," it/she/he said as it slowly walked towards us. "But I search only for other girl demigod." The thing raised its hand and pointed at Harold, who was now trying to block my view again, even though he was an inch shorter than me. "Her."

"_That's not surprising.... Hey, wait a minute! Where did I leave my pocket watch? And my glasses?"_

"Bodiless voices don't need glasses," I muttered, frustrated as I tried to peer over Harold's head. He was waving his arms now, trying to keep me from getting a good view of the thing down the street.

"You can leave, or you can go back to the Underworld, where you belong." Nina scowled furiously, and lifted the flash drive in her hand to point it at the thing. Instead of a regular USB drive thing, there was a bronze-like four foot long blade sprouting out of the flash drive.

"What. The. Hell." I scowled at Harold's flailing arms, and shoved him. "I want an explanation. _Now._"

"I... I can't. Not until we get away from the giant." Harold looked at Nina, then at the large thing down the street. It was closer to us than it had been a moment ago. "We need to go, Terra. Nina can handle herself; it's you the thing is after."

"Why is it after me?" I demanded.

"I can't tell you yet," Harold admitted, shaking his head. "But it isn't friendly. That's all I can say."

I looked at the thing. Closer up, it was taller, much more muscular, and I could see its face: a large nose, two scary brown eyes, and a mouth full of crooked teeth. "Uh.... Well, I can't say it looks like the friendliest person on earth...."

"Exactly!" Harold said cheerfully, and grabbed my arm. "Drop your book bag. You don't have anything needed for camp."

"What camp?"

"_What camp?_" Bob mocked. "_What do you mean, 'what camp'? There's quite a few camps in this area, I admit it; there's only one that has to do with giant people and flash drive swords...."_

"Come on," Harold urged, shaking my arm gently. "We can't wait any longer. If we're going to run, we need as little weight to carry as possible. And I don't need these feet." He scowled and looked down at his shoes.

"Wait... you don't need your feet?"

Harold raised his eyebrows. "Well, not these fake ones."

"_Fake?_ Then what happened to your real ones? Were they amputated?"

Harold chuckled, and began to kick off his shoes.

"Don't come any closer!" Nina warned the thing, and moved in front of us. "You're not going to touch them. If you want to get Terra, you have to go through me and my pretty little sword."

"Master says to kill all persons who interfere," the thing said, chuckling again. I shuddered. "I want snack. Then I get snack. You and satyr."

"Go!" Nina looked at Harold as he began kicking his feet around. "Harold, just run."

Harold looked at her, and grabbed his foot with his hand. He violently pulled it off (at first, I was going to faint because it looked like he was going to tear off his own foot), but then I noticed something: a shiny black hoof, like a goat's....

I made a small noise in the back of my throat as Harold threw the fake foot and his shoes away.

"I'll go with just one fake foot," he told me, and grabbed my arm again. "Come on! The thing probably has friends."

"Friends," it agreed, laughing. It slammed its fist into the palm of its hand, cracking a few knuckles. I flinched. "Many friends. They wait at camp for you. Master will be happy. Ghost girl will be captured, and I get lunch!"

I swallowed.

"_Don't be scared_," Bob told me soothingly. "_It's only about ten guys twice your height. Really muscular. Not so nice-smelling. Really ugly. But at least they don't have claws!"_

"Come on," Harold muttered, tugging on my arm. He was facing the other way, his back to the creature. "We'll have to go the opposite way...."

"But what about Nina?"

He looked at me. "Nina's a capable fighter. She'll be fine.... I hope."

"_You hope._"

"Shut up!" I snarled angrily. Harold gave me a weird look. "Not you."

Nina glared at us out of the corner of her dark brown eyes, and charged at the thing, sword extended. I looked away immediately.

"Let's go!" Harold cried, and pumped a fist over his head. He began running, his hoof making clopping noises as we ran like the wind in the opposite direction. "Spaaaarrtttaaaaaa!"

"You _so_ owe me an explanation," I growled at him as we ran. My mind ran like crazy; thoughts raced through, and I barely registered them as they flew past. My ADHD mind was on overdrive, and it looked like there was no stopping it.

Or maybe it was the adrenaline.

"_You have to hurry up!_" Bob told me. "_You can't let the thing eat you! It wants to bring you to its master, for Pete's sake. Nobody wants to hear anything about a master. Now, run like the wind before you get eaten. I don't want to tell your mother that you were viciously attacked by a giant and brought to its master. She'd throw a hissy fit and proceed to unleash an army of ghosts in pure daylight on the mortals."_

"My mom is dead," I murmured, dazed as Harold and I ran past my house. "Where are we going, Harold?"

"Somewhere," he told me, panting heavily. He began to slow down. "Stupid fake foot. I need to take it off."

"Then take it off!"

Harold glanced back behind us nervously. "I can't do that."

"Why?"

"Nina and our big friend are still fighting. And they're basically moving closer as we speak."

I made a small, irritated noise in the back of my throat. "Just tear off your foot! I don't want that ugly thing to take me to its leader."

Harold bleated nervously.

My eye twitched.

_Bleated?_

"Harold," I growled in a strained voice," what's... going... on?"

Harold began to breath deeply, even more heavily. "Not now.... I'll tell you later, Terra.... Not with it chasing us.... We have to get to the park! Nina and I have friends there; they're friendly, and they'll help us."

"If they don't have ugly teeth and are huge," I panted, "I'm fine with that. But how do you know that they're there?"

Harold gave me a look that I could compare to a sly detective's. "Oh, they'll be there. They always are."

I didn't want to know what that meant.

"Hi-ya! Get down, you stupid oaf."

I looked over my shoulder. Nina was stabbing at the thing without much luck. The huge person-guy-thing punched at her with its fist (which looked like it was the size of a very, very large plate). She danced to the side and stabbed the thing in the arm with her sword. It roared and swung at her with its other hand.

I looked away again.

"At last!" Harold cried, letting go of my arm to throw his arms into the air dramatically. "At last, we reach the park! At last.... At last...." He fell to his knees and let out a dramatic fake sob.

"Come _on_!" I sighed. "Where the freak are your friends, damn it? We need to get out of here."

"Nina!" Harold called. "Come on! A few more yards and we're home free." He looked at the trees on the sides of the path to the forest. "Oakley! Amethyst! Oak! Come on, guys. We need help here."

I had a funny feeling that I was going to have a near-fainting experience again.

The face of a ten year old girl popped out of a really large tree's trunk. Slowly, her body appeared, and finally, there was a little ten year old girl standing in front of us: a brown dress, brown hair, and very, very brown eyes.

"Hi!" she said to me cheerfully, waving. I only nodded, staring in wonder at the tree-kid.

"Oak, we need help," Harold pleaded, holding his hands out to her. "A giant is chasing us, and he's after my friend here."

Oak looked at me, frowning. "Isn't she the girl who Zeus thinks is turning the mortals into ghosts?"

"Oak!" he hissed.

"Sorry," she muttered, and picked up a few acorns. Oak turned to the other trees and said, "Come on, guys! We'll collect from Harold later."

"Thank you!" Harold cried, and leaped to his feet... hooves. Whatever. "Let us go, Terra!" He turned to Nina, who was coming closer to the park. "Nina, just _run_!"

Nina frowned at him, but leaped to the side as the giant guy-thing struck at her with its huge fists again, and made a mad dash for us, shutting the flash drive. The blade disappeared, and she stuffed it into her jacket pocket.

I looked at Harold. "What now?"

Harold grabbed my arm again, tearing off his other fake foot to reveal his other hoof. "We run like hell."

"_Indeed. I agree with the satyr for once. You should listen; he seems very good at running with hooves._"

I groaned, and looked at Harold. He turned, and we both began to run.

Like hell.

"Wait for me!" Nina wailed as she ran after us. The tree-girl, who apparently had friends, watched as she ran past, then looked at the giant thing.

"Hey, it's the ugly guy again!" she yelled, and tossed an acorn at the creature. The acorn bounced off its head, and the thing charged at her.

About twenty other acorns hit the thing in the head.

I laughed as we ran, but there was some sort of hollowness to it. I didn't feel like it was too funny. Not with a huge, ugly thing chasing me, or Harold's hooves, or the tree-chicks.

"Where to?" I asked Nina as she caught up with me.

Nina looked at me, and coughed. "Camp... Camp Half-Blood."

"What?"

Nina lowered her eyes, breathing hard. "I'll explain later."

Later.

"That's what everybody says," I grumbled, kicking up a cloud of dust and dirt with my foot. "Nobody ever does anything for me _later_."

"_Because you're impatient that way, Terra._"

I bit down hard on my lip to keep myself from mentally slapping Bob.

Oh wait, I can't slap a bodiless voice that doesn't need glasses.

"Darn," I muttered under my breath, and looked ahead. Harold was running (like hell), and Nina and I were just a few feet behind him. Occasionally, he'd stumble a few steps over some rock or something, curse softly, and continue running.

"Terra?" Nina asked.

"Eh?"

"Y-you know the thing that was chasing us, right?" she asked. I nodded. "Well.... It's not human. At all. We.... Er, Harold and I come from a world that isn't mortal.... Well, we're both half, but still.... And we think you aren't quite completely mortal either.... After all, there's been problems in our world, and they...."

I gave Nina a funny look. "Not mortal? What do you mean? Who are 'they'?"

Nina shut her eyes tightly. "Chiron will explain it to you when we get to camp."

"Who the freak is Chiron?"

Nina opened one eye to give me an irritated look. "Gods, you haven't been studying mythology, have you? The Chiron that trained Jason from the Argonauts, you know?"

"No idea."

"_You're so stupid._"

"Bob!" I growled.

"And that just adds to my suspicions," Nina muttered, staring at Harold as we ran through the park.

"What suspicions?" I asked, lightly punching her shoulder.

"I can't say right now," she murmured, and sped forward to kick the back of Harold's leg. "Move it, goat boy. Can't you see we're running from a giant?"

Harold bleated (my eye twitched again). "I can't go any faster! Go... on... without... me...." He fell to his knees, breathing heavily. Nina came to a stumbling halt, and turned to Harold.

"You idiot!" Nina snarled. "We're being chased by monsters, and you HAVE to use your 'dramatic flair' on us? Just get up and keep running! Sheesh, I don't see how we even became friends at all.... I'm not leaving without you, though...."

I stopped running just as I reached Nina, and knelt down beside Harold. "Come on.... We can't do this. Let's just give up."

Nina and Harold looked at me like I was crazy. "Give up?" Nina asked, and began waving her arms around dramatically. "Are you kidding me? The thing is going to kill you, then drag your dead body to its master, and then eat you! I honestly don't want to see my friend being devoured by giants."

I looked over my shoulder. The giant was charging at us, and the acorns bouncing off its head looked like it just made the thing angrier.

"Joe Bob smash!" it roared, and it grinned when it caught sight of us, stopping to rest. "I bring baggie for mother!"

I looked at Nina, and at her jacket pocket. "Nina, how much skill does it take to wield a sword?"

Nina stared at me, and blinked. "Not a lot, but it takes a while to get used to the hilt and stuff.... What are you planning?"

"_The crazy bitch is going to charge that thing._"

"I am crazy," I muttered in agreement. "Give me the sword, Nina."

"Are you _kidding_ me, Terra? You're going to get killed! You've never even touched a sword in your life." Nina grabbed my shoulders and shoved me behind her. "I'll fight it. You and Harold just run like hell."

"It's after me," I told her, clenching my jaw. "It will just kill you and then go after me and Harold. I'd rather have it kill me before you two."

"_Crazy chick.... You do know you can just summon us, right?_"

"Who the freak are 'us'?" I roared, shaking my fist at the sky.

"_As in, my fellow bodiless voices that don't need glasses. Just mutter this incantation...."_

"What incantation?"

"Terra, stop talking so loudly," Nina warned. She looked at Harold, and sighed. "Come on, goat boy. We've gotta go."

Harold leaped to his hooves, and puffed out his chest. "Yes, let us go, fair maidens!"

Nina slapped her forehead, and looked at me. "Run like hell, Terra."

"I'm not leaving you," I growled, prodding her shoulder blade. "Even if Bob tells me to."

"Terra," Nina said slowly after a brief pause, "have you ever gotten Bob's _real_ name? Not John Doe or whatever?"

"Er, no. Why?"

"Because he could be helpful if you _knew his real name_."

"Alright," I muttered. "Bob, give me your name."

"_Why?"_

"I need it."

"_You can't make me!"_

"Pfft. I so can."

"_Then make me."_

I blinked. He got me there.

Nina began to back up, pushing me back with her. Harold took a few steps back.

"Move slowly," he told us out of the corner of his mouth. "Nina, I think it would be wise as a child of Athena to just give Terra the damn sword."

"She can't even use it," Nina hissed at him. "How am I supposed to know what Terra can do? All Chiron said was to get her on our side and see if she really is t--"

She stopped talking abruptly.

"If I really am what?" I asked softly.

Nina shook her head, reaching into her jacket pocket. "Chiron is _so_ going to kill me if he finds out I'm doing this...."

She took out her flash drive and handed it to me. "Go right ahead and charge that giant like the crazy idiot you are, Terra Benson."


	4. Heading to Camp FreakBlood

AOG 4

I grinned and took the flash drive out of Nina's hand immediately. "Thank you, Mademoiselle. I'll be sure to return it to you."

"_If you don't die._"

"If I don't die," I agreed, and opened the flash drive. Instead of the USB thing, the bronze blade leaped out again. It didn't feel too steady, though. My hands shook as I held up the sword and pointed it at the giant.

"Are you sure this will work?" Harold whispered to Nina as she backed up behind me.

"Well," she said drily, "it will be good to see what she can do."

"Chiron's gonna kill you."

Nina shrugged. "Whatever. We're doomed both ways."

"_Way to be positive._"

"Hey, ugly!" I shouted to the giant. It stopped, and grinned. "You want me? Come and get me!"

"Girl demigods are stupid," the giant told us, nodding as it approached slowly. We kept backing away.

"Sexist much?" I muttered.

"_Indeed._"

"Name please?" I asked Bob.

"_Soon you'll get it. Soon, my dear. Soon."_

Great. I rolled my eyes, and held the sword in front of me. "You want me? Leave my friends alone and battle me, you stupid giant. I'm the one you want, aren't I?"

The giant looked at me, and then at Harold and Nina. "Yes," it said slowly, "but I bring doggie bags for mother and father. Babycakes left me."

"_Ooh, poor baby._"

I flinched as the giant began to advance towards me again. "I suggest you don't get anywhere near us."

"Or what?" the giant sneered, cracking a few more knuckles. "You are not trained. You stay with mortals too long. Friends are too late to save you. Master will be happy to see you gone. Then mortals become ghosts no longer."

"_What?_" I squeaked, and looked at Harold and Nina. "What is it talking about?"

Nina and Harold shook their heads vigorously. "If we get through this," Harold mouthed, "we'll tell you."

An acorn bounced off the back of the giant's head, but it didn't seem to be too bothered by it. I caught a glimpse of the tree girls, but they looked away and faded back into their trees immediately.

_ "Better get slicin' and dicin', Terra. You know, before you end up getting eaten and stuff._"

"Your name would be nice now," I grumbled, although I didn't see how knowing Bob's name was relevant. After all, that was the name he had given me when I first heard him, back when I was seven.

"_Be patient, young grasshopper. Right now.... Go get that giant!_"

I looked up, just in time. I saw a huge hand flying towards me, and my legs made me jump away immediately, like they had a life of their own. I felt the wind in my face as the hand swept past where I had been previously.

"You are fast," the giant commented, "but not fast enough." It swung around with its other hand, and I held up the sword, trembling slightly.

"_Yes! I love good old fashion impaling, even if it's only the hand that is impaled on something!_"

The giant roared when its hand struck the sword. My mind was a haze as I stabbed the sword deeper into the giant's hand, and I saw the tip of the blade emerge on the other side of the giant's hand, the tip covered with sort of yellow dust.

"_Hm. You're better than I thought._"

"Thank you," I muttered under my breath.

The giant swung the hand with the sword, and even though it missed me, I was sent flying without the sword, and into a fallen tree. I landed on the tree with a _crunch_ of dead leaves that still barely clung to the branches, groaning as my head struck the ground. I laid there, sprawled over the tree, as the giant approached, grinning down at me as it pulled Nina's sword out of its hand and tossed it away.

"You lose," it said, "and Master will be happy."

The giant raised its fist, and prepared to bring it down on me. I squeezed my eyes shut. I wasn't getting out of this one.

There was a groan.

I wasn't dead yet.

Hesitantly, I opened one eye, and coughed. Yellow dust billowed in the air, and Harold stood among it, holding Nina's sword straight out in both hand, like he was stabbing at something. The giant was nowhere to be seen among the yellow dust.

"_You did good, young grasshopper._"

"I'm not a grasshopper," I groaned, and sat up.

Harold looked at me, and grinned weakly. "Well, that was nice. You were good for a first-timer." He looked at the sword, covered with the same yellow dust that was still in the air. "We should leave. Somebody might think we're doing something bad here, since we are skipping school."

Nina walked over to me, frowning. "Did somebody teach you how to fight?"

"No," I muttered, trying to stand. Instead, I fell back down on my behind.

"_Years of talking to me have put information in Terra's mind.... Alright, fine. I admit it. It was the ADHD helping her. You know, battle reflexes and stuff._"

I groaned, flexing my shoulder, which was twitching in pain. "I think I broke something in that fall."

Nina began feeling her pockets, and her hand dove in to her right jacket pocket. She pulled out a bag of what looked like crackers. "Here we are. Finally found my ambrosia."

"Ambro-- what?"

"Ambrosia," Nina told me. "It heals wounds. I'm not sure if it will help, but...."

"_She needs nectar, you dimwitted daughter of Athena._"

"She is _not_ a dimwit," I muttered, staring at the ground.

"I think Terra would do better if we got to camp," Harold said, running up with Nina's sword. He shut the flash drive, and the blade disappeared. "Chiron could just put her arm in a sling or do some of that magical mumbo-jumbo."

Nina scoffed as Harold handed her her flash drive sword. "He can't do that. But you're right; we should get Terra to camp before anything else happens."

I looked up, frowning at Nina. "Like what?"

"Like more giant guys," she replied. "Now, get up. Harold and I will support you."

I put my hand firmly on the ground and began to slowly stand. Harold took one of my arms, and Nina took the other.

"We should hurry," Harold muttered, staring blankly ahead of us. "Camp is nearby, but I smell something funny."

"I think it's just the smell of the dust," Nina told him.

I coughed. "It smells the same as the neighborhood, Harry."

"But I'm a satyr!" he whimpered, looking around. "We smell things mortals and demigods can't."

"What the hell is a satyr?"

"Half human, half goat people," Nina explained. "Let's go."

We began walking through the park, although I felt strangely uneven. Oh wait, forget it. Nina was _way _ taller than Harold.

"_My gods_," Bob said after a while of silent walking, "_how many miles have you three walked? Two? Camp Half-Blood must be at least five miles away from where you are now! Move it, slowpokes, before I have to shove you to the camp._"

"Nina?" I muttered. "What was the giant talking about, when it said that the 'mortals will become ghosts no longer'?"

Nina stared straight ahead, like she wasn't paying attention. "Nothing I can say to you yet, but I can say that what he said was very, very bad."

"That thing was a _he_?"

"Yes, he was." Nina chuckled lightly. "The giant won't be back for a while, though. It takes a while to regenerate fully from Tartarus."

"Tartar sauce?"

"Tartarus," Harold corrected. "It's where all monsters go when they're killed. They always regenerate there, whether it be for a day or seven centuries. It's also where Kronos and the other Titans are enslaved."

"Kronos?" I mused. "Isn't he the Greek Titan of time?"

Nina beamed proudly. "Yes, he is. I'm not too proud to be related to him, but yes, he is. We're taking you to a Greek camp."

"You and Kronos are related? What the hell?"

"Yeah.... Chiron will explain it to you," Nina told me. "It's sort of confusing."

"Hey, I see camp!" Harold cried, waving his free arm around. "At last.... At last.... At last...."

He looked like he was about to drop to his knees, but Nina let go of my arm to slap the back of his head.

"Ow! What the hell was that for, Nina?"

"You were about to drop to your knees," Nina told him flatly. "Now, we'd better hurry. Before the giant's friends come."

I squinted into the distance. All I could see was a huge pine tree, and just an old, abandoned road. "I don't see anything except for a pine tree."

"Exactly!" Harold said cheerfully, taking my arm again. "Camp Half Blood is hidden by a border that keeps mortals and monsters like the giant out. If you're not mortal or a monster, you can zip right through the border with no problem. That tree you see is Thalia's tree; it keeps the borders up, with the Golden Fleece, and Peleus the dragon guards it."

"Wait," I muttered, stopping.

"_What is it?_" Bob asked, exasperated. "_You're so close to camp, and yet you're stopping. Why?_"

"Because you aren't my father," I muttered to him.

"What is it?" Harold asked, his cheerful expression turning into a confused one.

"So, if I'm not mortal or a monster," I said slowly, trying to gather the right words, "then what am I?"

"A demigod," Nina answered. "Half human, half god. Well, Greek god, anyway. Greek gods can't mix with gods of other cultures."

I blinked hard, trying to figure out what was going on. "But why do you need the borders? And a camp for demigods?"

"Borders are for keeping out monsters and mortals. This is why Camp Half-Blood is the only safe haven for demigods anywhere. Monsters always attack demigods, and if mortals found out about the gods...." Harold's voice trailed off.

"The camp is to train the demigods to defend themselves," Nina explained. "Some kids stay year-round, and some only go during the summer. If you're ever out of camp, though, you have to use the things they teach you to survive in the real world. Battling monsters, shooting arrows, etc...."

"Is that why the giant attacked me? Because I'm a demigod?"

Nina nodded.

"_Thank you, Captain Obvious._"

Harold looked up, and sniffed the air. "Er, guys.... I smell something."

I sniffed the air, but all I could smell was nature. "What do you smell? Dust?"

"Not that. Something.... It's faint, but it's not anything I recognize...."

Nina frowned. "We'd better get going, then. Before the thing finds us."

"_Yes, you should._"

Slowly, we began to walk towards the pine tree, like we'd never stopped. Harold looked fidgety as we walked, his eyes darting around nervously. Every so often, he would mutter things to himself, although I wasn't listening hard enough to decipher what he was saying.

"_Di immortales!_" Harold muttered. "The smell's not so faint anymore, but I know what it is...."

"Spit it out, Harold," I told him.

"Run first," he urged, "and I'll tell you later."

"From what?"

Harold turned his head, and pointed his chin in that direction. "That."

Nina and I turned our heads slowly, not only for dramatic effect, but because it made us look freaking cool.

A tank-sized black dog was heading towards us, with a woman with literally flaming red hair on its back. The woman, strangely, had claws, and one of her legs was that of a donkey's. I couldn't see what the other one was, since the dog was moving too fast....

"Run!" Harold wailed, and dropped my arm to run as fast as his goat hooves could take him.

Nina and I turned back to Harold, and we tried our best to run after him, but pain exploded down the base of my neck and spread through my shoulders. I winced, but I knew even through the haze of pain that I was the one slowing us down.

"_Hurry up! That hellhound looks awfully hungry, and that's basically bad for you._"

"What do we do?" I asked Nina in a strained whisper.

"Run," she answered through clenched teeth, "or fight. But you can't fight in your condition."

"But... won't those things stay at the borders to prevent other, er, demigods from getting out?"

Nina paused a moment to stare straight ahead as we ran after Harold. "Er, probably."

There was a loud bark, and suddenly the huge tank-sized dog was only a few feet behind us. The dog pounded the ground heavily with its table-sized paws, and made it seem like there was an earthquake occurring behind us.

"Give up!" the woman on the dog hissed at us, flexing her claws. "You'll never get away alive, foolish demigods. Hecate and her minions never lose!"

"Except to Percy Jackson," Nina muttered, running even faster.

"Who?"

"Never mind," she muttered.

"Hurry!" Harold called to us. He was standing next to the tree, his hand on something bronze.

I felt something very heavy hit my back, and it stayed there. It pressed down, and I fell, my face planting itself firmly into the ground. Nina let go of my arm, whether it be by accident or on purpose, and continued running.

I moved my face slightly to look up. Everything I saw was hazy, but I could see the outline of the woman on the back of the huge, black dog, who had its paw on my back.

"_Oh gods.... You're screwed._"

I groaned, shifting underneath the immense weight of the dog's paw. "What do you want?"

The woman grinned. Her face would be beautiful, but her eyes were entirely red, and her flaming hair made her look like she was the source of all evil. "We don't want anything with you; it's Hecate that wants a word with you."

"Who the hell is Hecate?" I asked.

"Goddess of magic, you know. Such a proud role in life." The woman puffed out her chest. "I am one of Hecate's thousands of servants, called an _empousa_. We serve Hecate, and only Hecate. And now, I have gotten what I came for: the demigod who is turning the mortals and demigods into ghosts." Her eyes glinted insanely as she grinned even wider. "After all, she is not happy that your first target was one of her favorite children."

"I don't know anything about that," I groaned.

The woman rolled her eyes. "That's what they always say."

"On my mark!" yelled some old guy.

The woman looked up, hissing. "Stupid Chiron and his petty archers. But we have gotten what we came for, after all...."

"_Terra, before you die or something, say this: 'I summon the ghosts of olde, the ghosts of all the demigods that had died before me. Serve the daughter of the goddess of ghosts and be rewarded with peace.' I think it will help you._"

"Why would I believe you?" I whispered. I felt like the paw of the hellhound was going to snap my spine or something, but strangely, the hellhound's paw began to weigh less for some reason, like it wasn't pressing down on me anymore.

"_You want to live? You have a twenty percent chance of living, even if Chiron and the Apollo archers successfully hit their marks. After all, sometimes arrows can be redirected...._"

"Fine," I wheezed. "I.... I summon the ghosts of olde, the ghosts of all the demigods that... that had died before me.... Serve the... the daughter of the goddess of ghosts..."

"Fire!" the old man yelled.

"... and be rewarded with peace...."

For a moment, all I could hear was the flying arrows, flying above and past me. One landed an inch from my hand. I stared blankly at it, and coughed.

A dull humming reached my ears, something that sounded eerie and old. Suddenly, the weight on my back disappeared. I looked up slowly.

Twelve transparent figures were in the air, floating. Their eyes were pale versions of what they used to be: pale brown, pale green, pale blue, etc. They wore torn clothes, looking bloody and beaten up. An arrow hung out of one girl's shoulder, a sword sticking out of one guy's back. Pretty much all of them look like they'd either gotten shot by an arrow or hit by a sword.

"_They will only serve you,_" said a man with a sword through his stomach. He grinned at me, and raised his hand.

He sounded like Bob.

The ghosts all opened their mouths and shrieked. I covered my ears and watched in awe and fear as the ghosts zoomed towards the _empousa_ and hellhound as they tried to run. Arrows stuck out of the hellhound's legs, and the _empousa_ had one in her shoulder. The ghosts, turning into a hazy transparent vortex, began to flying around the duo.

There was a loud howl and a shriek, then the ghosts and the hellhound and _empousa_ were gone.

"_Wonderful. Now you know how to summon ghosts!_ _Now, rest, Terra...."_

I groaned, putting my face in my hands, and curled up into fetal position.

The dark unconsciousness that took over my mind was welcomed.


	5. Victim 13

AOG5

"_Wake up, Terra.... Terra.... Wake up, you lazy bum! You can't honestly stay unconscious for another two days!_"

I groaned, and opened one eye. Light seared my eyes, too bright to be a regular light or something. I shut my eye just as quickly as it had opened.

"She's awake," muttered a voice from above me. "Thank goodness. I thought she was comatose or something."

"_Open your eyes, you lazy ass._"

I groaned again, and opened my eyes. A really tall man with a beard, Harold, Nina, and some short blond boy stood over me, like they were waiting for me to do a few front flips or something.

"Er...." I blinked hard. "Hi?"

Harold forced a smile. "Well, you're awake now. Thank the Fates. You're lucky we have Chiron. You could have died from using so much energy."

The blond kid nodded. "Yeah. Where did those ghosts come from, kid? They just came, then they were gone. We thought you were a goner."

I stared blankly at the kid. "I... I have no idea."

"_Of course you do, you idiot. You summoned them, after all._"

"I.... I did?" I murmured.

"Pardon?" asked the man with the beard.

"Er, she talks to herself a lot, Chiron," Nina told him.

The man named Chiron nodded. "I see. Well, Terra, if you are well enough to stand, then I will take you on a tour of the camp." His face darkened as he turned to Nina and Harold. "I will deal with you two later.... What were you two _thinking_, handing an untrained demigod a sword?"

Nina and Harold exchanged exasperated glances, and walked out of the room.

"You too, Tommy," Chiron told the short blond boy.

"Sure," the boy muttered as he turned away. "Sure...."

Chiron watched as the boy walked out, then turned back to me. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood. I am Chiron, activities director of Camp Half-Blood. You were out cold for two days."

"Yeah.... That's not so bad," I murmured. "Sort of got that when Nina told me about this, er, camp...."

"Can you stand?"

I blinked, and tried getting out of the bed. I immediately fell to my knees, and looked up to grin at Chiron sheepishly.

Cue the near-fainting scene. Again.

From waist-up, Chiron looked like a regular human guy, with a t-shirt that read "I'm Not a Pony" and a beard. From waist down, though, he was basically a white _horse_.

I giggled nervously, feeling light-headed.

Chiron gave me a look of concerned amusement. "Is there something wrong?"

"_No, Chiron, except for the fact that Terra had been dropped on her head a few times when she was a baby, got thrown into the world of monsters and gods in just a span of a few hours, and then just found out that some guy named Chiron – the same one who trained Jason of the Argonauts-- is part horse. Otherwise, all is well. By the way, Chiron's not a pony; he's a centaur._"

"Just shut up," I begged quietly. "For a few minutes."

"Pardon?"

I looked up and grinned at Chiron sheepishly, pulling on my shoes. "Nothing. Let's go."

I stood up and followed behind Chiron (not too close, since his horse tail was flicking around ) out the door, and into a courtyard. Kids ran around madly, shouting at each other, while music blared out of many open cabin doors. As far as I could count, there were at least twenty or more cabins, each colorful and very artistic looking.

"This place is packed," I commented.

Chiron chuckled. "It wasn't quite as much before Percy Jackson made the gods promise to claim all of their children.... How old are you, Terra?"

I blinked. "Er, fourteen. Why?"

Chiron looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "You weren't claimed yet?"

"Claimed? What the hell does that mean?"

"Well, when you come to this camp, you are claimed by a god parent, whether it be Zeus or Eris. Usually, the demigods are claimed by age thirteen, but you're fourteen.... Has a holographic mark of something ever appeared over your head?"

"No."

Chiron blinked, but stopped in the middle of the courtyard. I stopped, his tail barely missing my face. "These are the cabins.... There are many, but let me give you a run through of the main cabins.... The first one with the lightning bolt is the Zeus cabin, the one next to it Hera, then Poseidon, Demeter, Ares, Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Hermes, and Dionysus. Then, the Hades cabin is next to the Dionysus cabin." He nodded at me. "Then there are the minor god cabins.... There are many, so I can't really tell you much about them. There are signs for all of the cabins that represent each god, like how the Apollo cabin shines brightly or the Poseidon cabins smells, er, like the sea."

I sniffed the air. "I don't smell anything."

"You need to be inside or at least in the doorway."

"Oh...." I nodded, and looked around. Each cabin, except for the silvery Artemis cabin and the Hera cabin, looked like they had kids in them. The Zeus, Hades, and Poseidon cabins all had kids lounging on their steps, and they all looked like they were cousins or something.

"Now," Chiron announced, "let us continue your tour."

I barely listened to Chiron for the rest of the tour, since I really wasn't too interested in hearing about how the strawberry fields were used to grow strawberries to raise money to buy things for the camp, or how the Big House was used to, like, help injured kids get treatment for their wounds and injuries. By the time we reached the horse stables, I heard a conch horn being blown somewhere in the distance.

"Oh, it's time for lunch," Chiron muttered, looking at the watch on his left wrist. "Come with me, Terra. We should get you properly introduced, since your, ah, entrance has left quite an expression on most of the Apollo campers that were there when you got, er, attacked."

"_He means you embarrassed the crap out of yourself when you slipped into unconsciousness._"

"Chiron, what cabin am I in?" I asked. "I mean, didn't you say that the children of each god are put into their parent's table and cabin?"

Chiron turned his head slightly to look at me as we walked to the Mess Hall. "You weren't exactly claimed by any god yet. You could be a child of Hades, with your ghosts, or perhaps some minor god, like Eris or Nemesis. Either way, I do not know yet. We will, I hope, find out soon."

"_He hopes._"

"For now," Chiron said, looking straight ahead again, "you will sit at the Hermes table. I will alert the Stoll brothers of your arrival. We will get you and the other new arrivals introduced at dinner tonight."

I nodded blankly, and followed Chiron to the Mess Hall. Most of the kids were already there; they sat at the tables, chatting with each other excitedly for some reason. Maybe they just did it all the time.

Chiron walked up to a table full of kids with rather mischievous looks on their faces, and tapped two boys with the same brown hair and t-shirts on their shoulders. "Connor, Travis, I must speak to you two."

One of the boys looked at the centaur. "But we didn't do anything, Chiron."

"You didn't," Chiron agreed. "It's just that you have a new arrival in your cabin."

The other boy looked at Chiron. Both boys looked similar; maybe they were full-blooded siblings. "Again? Didn't we just get five this morning?"

"It's the one from two days ago," Chiron replied.

One of the boys blinked, and smiled at me. I blushed and tried to move behind Chiron. "Oh, that one? Well, er, welcome...."

"Terra," Chiron suggested.

"Terra," the boy completed. "Nice name."

I mumbled gibberish under my breath.

"_Aww, does my little Terra have a crush?_"

"I'll crush your head before I admit I have a crush," I muttered quietly.

"For now, Terra," Chiron said, turning to me, "you will sit here with the Hermes kids, AKA the cabin and table where you stay until you are claimed."

I nodded, staring blankly at my feet. "Yeah. Sure."

He put a heavy hand on my shoulder and muttered softly, "If you ever see anything out of the ordinary -- whatever ordinary is for demigods – tell me about it."

I nodded, and Chiron walked off. I stared as he walked away, his tail flicking around at the air.

This camp was probably going to be bad news for me.

A few hours later, I really just wanted to go home. I followed the Hermes kids' schedule, though I wasn't really forced to participate in anything (I used my back injury as an excuse). Basically, I sat in the sidelines for everything: archery, sword-fighting, etc. I didn't see how launching arrows around and trying to chop each other's heads off were so "awesome".

This camp wasn't so different from any other camp, besides the fact that they had sword fighting with real swords, archery with real arrows, a centaur teaching archery, kids with powers (like children of Hades being able to summon the dead, Poseidon kids control water, etc), the satyrs, naiads, and dryads, and a god for a camp director.

Yeah, read it and weep.

During sword fighting practice, Connor Stoll (or was it Travis?) was talking about the swords with me on the sidelines.

"These swords can't really harm mortals," he'd said, "because they were made of Celestial bronze, which can only harm demigods, gods, and monsters. There's Stygian iron, which is the Underworld version of the Celestial bronze, only it can suck monsters' essences."

"What if the sword were an alloy?" I had asked. "Like, Celestial bronze with regular human steel or bronze?"

Connor's face had darkened as he muttered, "I knew only one person who had a sword like that, and how the sword was made was very, very gruesome."

Well, way to be positive.

Anyway, Nina and I were walking to the Hermes cabin after dinner, which wasn't so bad. We were one of the few stragglers left behind, so it only made sense for us to talk to each other about, er, Camp Half-Blood and stuff. I hadn't gotten the chance to talk to her all day since I'd woken up, since the Athena kids apparently didn't meet the Hermes kids at any time of the day on their camp activity schedule. (I was so lucky that Chiron forgot about introducing the new kids.)

"How do you like camp so far?" Nina asked, hugging herself. "I love this place like a second home."

I looked at her strangely. "Why? I think this place sucks."

"It does not!" she protested. "I actually have friends that don't abandon me after a few months. And I have siblings, too, not like Natalie and Nikolai at home. My parents hate me; Athena sort of pays attention to her kids."

I frowned. "Yeah, sure. If the gods really paid attention to their kids, then I would be claimed, wouldn't I?"

Nina stopped walking, and sighed. "Terra, you're just an exception. Five years ago, after the second Titan-God War, Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, made the gods promise to claim their children by age thirteen. You're fourteen now. That's a year off. No god is ever that late. Either your godly parent is lazy, or they aren't listening to the promise made to Percy."

I scoffed. "Yeah.... I still think this place is terrible, though. I don't see how archery and sword-fighting are so fun."

"_But you can vent anger in your sword-fighting! Don't you want to do that, Terra?"_

"No," I muttered, scratching my chin. "By the way, you still haven't told me what that giant thing meant when he said something about turning mortals into ghosts."

Nina looked at her feet. "I... I can't really tell you."

"You said that last time."

Nina looked at the silvery Athena cabin, then back at me. "I'd get in trouble if I told you.... Everybody thinks you're the one doing this, and with the little ghost vortex and the monsters talking about you turning people into ghosts...." Her voice trailed off.

I scowled, and looked at the Hermes cabin. "What is 'this'? Just give me a straight answer, damn it. I don't want to be left in the dark anymore...." I shuddered. Oh Lord, it was _dark _in the courtyard. I twitched, my paranoia making me shiver. I swear something not of this world was going to leap at my back soon.

Nina swallowed, shuffling on both feet. "People are.... People are disappearing from camp. Twelve people, both demigods and mortal, are turning into ghosts. All twelve weren't dead at all. Instead, in the morning, they were found in their cabin bunk, with a number carved into their palm: the number that represented how many victims there were. And at night, the cabin mates of the victims would see the ghost of the demigod victim getting ready for sleep. I don't want to know about what the mortals think of this.... Half of the twelve are mortal, the other half demigods.... People think that this person is going to go after gods next."

I blinked, then chuckled. "So, what did you do with the bodies? Bury them?"

Nina scowled at me. "We put them in the Big House. This _isn't_ funny, Terra. Two of my cabin mates were victims number six and ten. I don't want to lose anymore siblings."

I snorted, putting my hand on the Hermes cabin door. "Right, right. In the end, you'll find out it was just a cruel, cruel joke made up by these 'victims' just to scare the living crap out of you. What bull shit."

"You sound like a skeptic."

I looked at Nina out of the corner of my eye as I turned the doorknob. "You mean, I sound like you. Skeptic of the skeptical. Skeptical of the skeptics."

I chuckled at her angry look, and opened the door.

"Nice for you to join us, Terra," Chiron muttered. I could see his horse half clearly, with its swinging tail.

"What's up?" I asked him, grinning.

He moved to the side.

A boy was laying in his bunk, but his eyes and mouth were open. His hand, which was palm-up on the side of his pillow, had a "13" cut into it.

I looked around at the depressed expressions of the Hermes cabin kids. "Aw, come on, guys. Don't be so down. This will probably end up being a stupid, cruel joke by your would-be victims of dark magic or whatever."

Chiron's eyebrow twitched. "And how would you know?"

"Because ghosts don't exist."

"That's what the person who's turning everybody into ghosts would say!" shouted a kid from the back.

"_Are you kidding me? That's what every ghost skeptic would say.... I vote that I should knock this bastard around. You with me, Terra?_"

"No," I muttered quietly, and looked around. "Come on, guys, this is just a joke. It's not possible to turn living beings into ghosts."

Some kids muttered among themselves uneasily. I scowled and looked at my feet during the awkward silence that ensued.

"_I suggest you don't look up, Terra._"

"Why?" I whispered. "Is there going to be katana-wielding bunnies heading for me?"

"_No, but--"_

I looked up anyway.

Immediately, thirty transparent girls and boys met my eyes. They had pale versions of their eyes, and they looked ghostly in the light. They sat on bunks, stood in the corners of the room, leaned against the walls, and stood in large spaces that weren't occupied by kids on the floor. The transparent kids all were wearing torn and bloody armor, like they'd be in some huge fight. Some kids had swords sticking out of various body parts, arrows still in their shoulders, cuts and bruises on their transparent bodies, etc. The scary part, though, was that they all looked under eighteen; if they weren't ghosts, then they'd probably be alive, sitting in the cabin in front of me. I wondered if they had any family that still cared about them.

I let out a choked cry and took a few steps out of the cabin.

"Terra?" Chiron frowned. "Are you alright? You look a bit pale."

One of the transparent kids smiled. "Yes," he muttered in a cheerful voice, "you do look quite pale, Terra. Why don't you sit down with us, and talk to us?"

"N-no," I stammered, stumbling out of the cabin. "Get away from me."

"Come on, Terra," a transparent girl called, "why are you leaving? Don't you want to stay and talk to us all night, where no other demigods except for you can hear us talking to you?"

"Get away from me," I repeated in a strained voice.

"Terra?" Chiron called. "Terra, come back this instant!"

I shook my head, and shut my eyes for a few moments as I walked backwards, still facing the open Hermes cabin door. "No... No. Get away from me!"

When I opened my eyes, I found myself face to face with a transparent boy. Unlike the other things in the cabin, he wore jeans and a t-shirt, and his eyes weren't as pale. He held up his hand, his palm facing me: a number "13" was cut into it, just like the boy in the cabin.

"Help me," he whispered, and faded into fog.

I shrieked and turned away from the Hermes cabin, only to find myself face to face with Harold, who had been talking to another kid from the Hermes cabin.

"Terra?" Harold asked, frowning. "Are you alright?"

"No! Get away from me!" I shrieked, and turned towards the forest. Without waiting for Harold's reply, I ran towards the woods, screaming my head off as I waved my arms around like a crazy chicken.

I didn't freaking care if it was dark in the woods; I just needed a place to get away from those-- those _things_ in the Hermes cabin.

I just kept running through the woods, still screaming. I didn't want one of those transparent kids to be following me; they wanted me to talk to them, but I couldn't. I didn't want to.

I was just too cowardly to stay and chat.

Coughing, I stumbled a few more steps before falling to my knees among the dark forest and its thousands of trees.

I looked around. Peace. Quiet. I grinned suddenly, and began laughing, although it came out scratchy and insane-sounding.

"Well, Bob," I said out loud, "you were right for once. You were right."

"_Of course I was, and the one time I give you good advice, you don't listen to me like the crazy idiot you are._"

I smiled. "Of course. Of cou---"

I began coughing again, and continued for a few moments.

"_You idiot. I don't think you should stay in the Hermes cabin. Too many of them were killed in the Titan-God War."_

I laughed insanely, then coughed, and laid down on the dead leaves and sticks of the forest floor. "At least I can get some peace here.... Some."

I took a deep breath, and shut my eyes.

"_You're crazy to be sleeping in the forest. Don't you remember that Chiron said that they put monsters in here for training exercises?_"

I chuckled. "You can burn in hell for all I care, Bob.... It would be better to sleep here with the monsters instead of with the transparent kids in the Hermes cabin."

"_You mean ghosts._"

I shuddered and sighed. "Yeah. Whatever."


	6. Let's Kill the Newbie

AOG6

When I woke up in the morning, the forest was brightly lit with sunlight. I touched my right cheek; it had a mark of a stick that I'd put my head on. I coughed, and sat up.

"_Well, at least nobody looked for you. And a monster didn't attack."_

"That's actually weird," I muttered. "Wouldn't they have sent a search party since I had one of the weirdest shriek-a-thons of all time?"

"_Hehe. You know, I might have had something to do with that..... Kidding. It was just your freak-out that made them not look for you. I guess they either assumed that you ran and committed suicide, or ran into the forest and went insane. Better go dash their hopes, Terry."_

I stood, and reached up to my hair. Well, it wasn't too messy. "That would be fun."

"_Yes it would, my dear._"

"Don't call me that," I told him quickly, and began walking out of the woods.

After a while of walking, I still hadn't really reached the way I'd entered the forest (marked by all of the destroyed leaves and twigs). I guess I had run very deep into the forest, or I was just walking very, very slowly.

"Bob," I asked slowly, "how long was I running?"

"_Ten minutes. You've been walking for three._"

"Gotcha." I broke into a hurried run, not only because the tree-chicks were coming out of their trees, but I just didn't want to have a run-in with a monster. I coughed into my forearm as I ran; either I was sick, or the screaming last night really got to me.

Finally, I burst into the tree-less courtyard, breathing hard. I guessed that it was early morning, since not a lot of people were outside. Those who were outside looked at me, and began to talk to the nearest person.

"Oh, great," I muttered bitterly. "They're probably talking about last night."

"_Indeed, Terra. That was quite a performance; I didn't know your lungs had it in them._"

I broke into another coughing fit, and didn't stop for a minute. When I did, I slowly walked towards the Hermes cabin, shoulders hunched. Oh, they were _so _going to hate me for thinking this living-to-ghost thing was just a joke.

It also added to their suspicions that I was doing this to the demigods and mortals.

I walked up to the Hermes cabin door and hesitantly put my hand on the doorknob. Would they burn me at the stake? No, it wasn't Salem, Massachusetts. Would they have torches and pitchforks, then go charging at me as I run towards a castle? No, there were no castles around here. Why was I being so paranoid?

Oh yeah. The ghosts, and Mr. Thirteen.

I swallowed, and opened the door.

It was dark in the Hermes cabin, but the people who were just getting up looked at me irritably. I noticed that Mr. Thirteen was gone, and his bunk was empty. Kids slept on the floor (mostly under the age of thirteen), some on bunks. They didn't like look an angry mob who wanted to kill me. Travis (or was it Connor?) looked at me, and managed a faint smile.

"Hello, Terra," he muttered as he pulled on a sock.

"Where did they move the kid?" I asked him softly, leaning against the door frame.

"To the Big House, with the rest of the victims." Travis's voice sounded bitter as he stood up, and stretched. "You'd better be ready for Capture the Flag tonight. You're going to participate in sword-fighting with us today, and you'd better not complain."

"Dude, I'm just a newbie. Don't pick on me!"

Travis grinned at me, a mischievous glint in his eye. "I heard from the Apollo campers what happened a few days ago. If we can use that power again, we could probably end up winning Capture the Flag."

I frowned. "I didn't even know how I did that in the first place. What makes you think that I can do it again?"

"_You do know that it was the incantation that summoned the ghosts, right?_"

"Yes, I do," I muttered quietly to myself.

"Excusez moi?"

"Er, nothing." I shook my head. "I tried holding all of the swords with Connor. None of them felt, like, right. Whatever that means."

"Balanced."

"Yeah, that."

Travis shrugged, stepping over a few sleeping seven year olds. "It was the same for a few other campers. We'll try getting you fitted for armor-- that is, if you want the armor."

"Does it eliminate the threat of getting killed?"

Travis nodded.

"Then I guess I'll use it. I don't want to die on my second day conscious in this camp."

"Anyway," Travis said, looking at one little girl next to the door, "what happened last night? You ran off screaming."

"I, er.... Saw something I wasn't supposed to."

"Like what?"

"_Ghosts, you dimwitted son of Hermes. Aren't thieves supposed to be sly and smart? And why the heck aren't you pranking Terra?"_

"Uh.... nothing," I replied, shaking my head slightly. "I guess it was an illusion. Lots of people outside of camp think I'm insane."

Travis chuckled, and held out his hand. "Well, let's try clearing that image."

Hesitantly, I took his hand.

A large siren began to blare in the courtyard, making many kids wake up in confusion.

I stared at Travis, who just grinned sheepishly and mouthed, "Oops?"

Later that morning, at sword practice, Travis and Connor were busy talking about swordsmanship, the sword, and how the sword was an extension of the user's arm. I yawned, and looked around. Well, no distractions to look at.

"Terra!"

I jumped immediately.

Connor snickered. "What were you, day-dreaming? Pick up a sword from the rack, Terra. We're going to show how to block to our younger members. Meanwhile, everybody over thirteen –except for you, Terra, since you're not getting away that easily-- can go practice what we just showed them."

I rolled my eyes, and grabbed the nearest sword. It was too light in my hand, like a feather. Not "balanced" at all. I stood up, and walked over to Connor, who was busy examining his own sword; of course, it was balanced for him.

"Now," Travis said, walking up behind his brother, "you can block several ways."

"_Thank you, Captain Obvious._"

As soon as I looked at Connor, a sword was flying towards my face. Yelping, I raised my sword, blocking the attack, but my own sword as about an inch from my own face.

"That's an example of one way to block, although Terra should have blocked earlier." Travis grinned, patting my shoulder as his brother lowered his sword. "Keep your guard up at all times. Sometimes, you won't have a shield."

Connor smiled and lunged at my chest. I stuck my sword up and knocked the sword to the side, where it would probably stab my arm instead.

"_Well, that was a fail._"

"If you want to get stabbed in the arm instead of the chest, do what Terra just did." Travis grinned and backed away, eliciting chuckles from the little kids.

I scowled. "You guys are so immature."

"_So? So is Harold._"

I scoffed. "Alright, Connor. Hit me with your best shot--- oh wait, I forgot. You're too cowardly to hit me directly."

Connor's eye twitched. "Now, we're moving on to attacking.... One attack is called lunging.... You do it like _this_...."

He lunged at my chest again. My legs took on a life of their own again, and I side-stepped.

"_Good girl. Your over-active ADHD may have made you get kicked out of a few private schools, but you're home free now._"

"Er, Connor," Travis muttered, gently shoving his brother's shoulder, "I think the kids get the idea."

"Yes, they do," I agreed, setting the sword back down on its rack. "Now, I'll be sitting and, like, doing nothing. Maybe stare into space again."

"No," Travis said, grinning. "You're going to spar with me. The younger kids can watch. Now, pick up that sword. I show no mercy, even to girls."

I groaned, and picked up the sword again. Too light. I really should have stayed in the forest....

When I looked up, Travis was lunging at me with the sword. Yelping, I dove to the side and landed with my stomach on the floor. Grunting, I leaped to my feet again and spun around to face Travis.

"_Well, you've certainly inherited your mother's reflexes, even though I've never seen her fight before._"

"Who the freak is my mother?" I muttered, leaping back at Travis swung his sword. It grazed my elbow and left a small cut there.

"_She'll claim you soon. Very, very soon...."_

I wanted to say that I won that fight with Travis, but sadly, I didn't. Instead, I got pummeled and was left with minor cuts that healed instantly when I ate those cracker-things that Travis had on hand (he called it "ambrosia"). We had archery, wrestling with the Ares cabin, then a free period after that. I just plain out sucked at archery and notching the arrows (I nearly shot a kid in the eye), and the Ares camper that I was forced to wrestle with left me with a sore shoulder (which didn't help, since it was still sore that day) and a lot of bruises. The free period I spent with Nina, who was busy talking to me about genetics and all of that genetic crap.

"... and then there's those inherited traits, like your height and weight and stuff...."

I grunted, staring blankly into space. "Yeah. Sure."

Nina gently punched my shoulder. "So, how was last night? You know, running for the forest while screaming your head off and all of that crap. What happened? Did you see something in the Hermes cabin?"

I paled, and hugged myself. "Er, no. I-I don't know."

"_Yes you do, Terra. Just admit it; you can see ghosts and spirits that nobody else can. I don't suggest that you talk to the Hades kids; they can summon spirits and get zombies to do their bidding, but they can't see ghosts unless they summon them via offerings, or the ghosts are attached to a place and are too dumb to leave."_

"You're lying."

I shot Nina an angry glare. "No. I'm not lying to you."

"Your eyes get twitchy when you lie."

I waved her off. "Yeah, whatever. Who are the teams for Capture the Flag anyway?"

Nina grinned. "Athena cabin is leading Red Team, which is Hermes, Apollo, Zeus, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Nemesis, Eris, Hecate, Nike, and Dionysus cabins. Blue Team is lead by the Ares cabin, who basically have everybody else."

"That's nice to know. The Ares kids will probably be football-tackling everybody." I hugged my knees to my chest, and looked at the Hermes cabin. I _so _wasn't going to go back in there.

"You know," Nina said softly, "you don't have to stay in there. Chiron would understand if you told him what you saw...."

"No!" I snapped. "He'll think I'm insane. The whole camp probably does."

Nina sighed. "Some demigods do, since they think they see things that aren't real. But half the time, those things are monsters or something. That's why some demigods don't make it to camp alive."

"Yeah," I muttered. "Whatever."

That night, after dinner, everybody crowded the Mess Hall to watch as two Athena kids ran in with Athena's silvery flag, and two Ares kids ran in with their blood-red flag. I stared at the back of Nina's head. If Travis could find out how I managed to summon those ghosts, then I'd probably have another period of unconsciousness and maybe another episode of insane screaming.

"You know the rules!" Chiron said above the noise of the chatty campers. "No maiming or killing, or else you lose s'more privileges for a week. Keep your flag in view of the other team. If you are captured by the other team and you are beaten by them in a fight or give up, you will stay in their 'prison' until somebody from your team gets you out. Now, put on your armor and get your weapons!"

At least three-quarters of the kids in the Mess hall ran out of the exits, while I was one of those kids who were reluctant to go. I walked out after the crowd, shoulders hunched and wanting to go home.

Home. I straightened my back. What were my dad and Alexandra thinking? That I skipped school or ran away with Nina and Harold? Their parents were probably worried sick. If I knew my dad, then he'd be having a panic attack and would be busy putting up "Missing" posters of us all around town.

"After this," I promised myself quietly, "I'll go ask for a phone to contact them. Or ask Chiron to tell my dad I'm fine."

"_Chiron already alerted him, Terra. No need to be paranoid._"

I scoffed, and walked into the Hermes cabin, where everybody was putting on armor, exchanging weapons, etc. Travis shoved a Greek chest plate and a Greek helmet into my arms, then went to help some of the younger kids with their armor straps. I stared blankly at the armor, then put them on, readjusting my armor straps.

I was _so _screwed.

"Here's your weapon," Connor told me, handing me a four foot long Celestial bronze sword and a shield. The sword was a bit heavy, and the shield would probably weigh me down, but I guessed that it could work for now.

"Yeah," I muttered quietly. "Thanks."

"Hermes cabin, to the forest!" Travis yelled, and everybody ran out of the door. I lumbered after them, hugging the the shield and sword to my chest.

By the time I reached the forest, everybody was dividing into their teams. Harold gave me a thumbs-up, standing next to Chiron on the sidelines. I gave him a faint smile and followed the Hermes cabin to the Red Team's side, where Nina and some girl with long blond hair was directing everybody.

"Emily, Travis, Connor, Devin, and Maria, you can go on defense," Nina told, pointing to the campers. "Nuke those Ares campers with your stink bombs."

I sighed. Well, if I got on defense, then I might make it out alive tonight....

"_Way to be positive."_

"Terra, Marie, Dennis, Ashley, Marcus, Andrew, and Raj can go on offense, right flank. I'll be going with them." Nina smiled at me, like this was planned. I stared back at her.

I didn't know how to fight directly. All I did during sword-fighting practice today was block attacks.

I guess Nina wouldn't care, though.

As soon as Nina finished dividing the Red Team into different mini-teams and the blond girl set the flag in between cracks of a huge rock formation (it looked like deer droppings), she walked over to me with the other kids in our little offense team, placing her helmet on her head.

"Well, Terra," she said, grinning brightly, "you're going to learn first-hand how we demigods play Capture the Flag."

"Joy," I muttered, staring at my shoes.

Nina grabbed my shoulder and pulled me to the side. "Look, Terra, don't worry. I put you in a team of experienced fighters. You'll be fine. If you happen to get knocked out or something, we'll have somebody cover for you."

"Great. So now everybody on offense's right flank knows I can't fight and will gladly cover my cowardly butt if I get knocked out?"

Nina sighed. "Don't worry.... Now, CTF is starting. We'd better get going."

A conch horn blew in the distance, and it seemed to mark the game's beginning, because all of the kids on Red Team began forming their groups and heading deeper into the forest. My little team stayed where we already were, and drew their weapons. I could see their eyes through the slits in their helmets: cold determination, and a desire to win.

Nice to know that I was the only one who didn't want to be here right now.

"Let's go," Nina whispered, drawing her sword.

"Yeah," I muttered, shifting my shield uncomfortably on my arm. "Let's."

Nina shot me a quick grin before leading the group towards the creek. I followed reluctantly, holding my sword close to my chest.

We reached the creek fairly quickly, since I guess we were "ninjas" in the demigod sense. Everybody leaped over fairly easily; I had to wade through the creek and its water. When I got out, they were running into the Blue Team's territory.

I made an angry noise in the back of my throat and ran after them.

"_Move it! I bet Howard ten drachmas that Red Team would win. You'd better not lose, kid...."_

When I finally caught up with my team, they were all hiding behind the same, huge tree, whispering among themselves.

"Terra!" Nina whispered as I jogged over. "Just the person I need!"

"I don't want to know what you mean," I muttered.

"Distract the Hades kids for us," she ordered. "We'll save you, then we'll go and try to get the flag."

"Great. I'm bait." I chuckled bitterly. "So do I just step out and talk to them?"

"Yes."

I made a disgusted noise from the back of my throat, and stepped out into the open, taking a few hesitant steps forward. Immediately, three swords were pointed at my chest.

"Don't move," warned a boy. He looked at least fifteen, with dark eyes and insane-looking brown eyes.

"Not like I can," I muttered. "So, how's life, boys? Girls?"

The only girl among the three kids who were pointing their swords at me scowled and prodded my chest plate with her sword. It was bronze; it probably wasn't Stygian iron. I guess some Hades kids didn't get Stygian iron swords. "Move it, girl. You're our prisoner now."

"Now!"

A stink-bomb flew out from behind the tree the right flank offense team was hiding behind, and exploded. I coughed, not only because of the smell, but because I had to.

"Go go go!" Nina's voice. Somebody grabbed my arm and dragged me away, despite my coughing fit.

"Nice job," Nina told me, grinning. I could only cough in response, clutching my throat.

A girl from our team frowned. "Are you alright, kid?"

"F-fine," I muttered, and coughed again. "Just fine."

"_Then go get that freaking flag._"

"Now, run like the wind!" a boy yelled, and we were all running. I was forced to run, since Nina was dragging me, and let me tell you that she was way faster than I was at running.

"Raj, Andrew, Ashley, Dennis, fire!" Nina screamed.

I saw arrows flying into the dark, and the dull _thunk _of arrows hitting trees and shields. We ran deeper into the Blue Team's territory, and found ourselves face to face with the mini-team defending the flag.

They were Ares and Hades kids.

I gulped as the one I had been partnered with for wrestling grinned at me in malice, cracking his knuckles. He had arrows in his shield, and stood directly in front of the flag. Behind him, I could see a face, but it disappeared as soon as I caught a glimpse of it.

Maybe it was our left flank's offense team.

Our three archers launched another volley of arrows at the Blue Team's flag defense force. They blocked easily, and the sword-fighters charged at each other. One Hades kid slammed her shoulder into Nina's shield, and she stumbled back.

Our team looked like it wouldn't survive.

"There you are!" my Ares wrestling partner roared, swinging his sword at me. I raised my shield and blocked it, but my arm shook with the force of the blow.

Damn, those campers were totally on steroids.

I weakly raised my sword to lunge at him, and then it was clattering to the floor. I stared at my empty hand.

"_You're screwed."_

"Yes I am," I muttered, and raised my shield to block the Ares camper's stab. I noticed that a certain region of his body was virtually unguarded....

Weird.

It was worth a try.

I made a dive for my sword, and the Ares camper swung downward with his sword. I held up my shield and sent my foot flying up, and then....

The Ares camper was on the ground, clutching his below-the-waist region in pain.

I chuckled, snatching up my sword, and leaped to my feet. "Nice seeing you again. I'll be sure to do that again sometime."

I looked around. Everybody except the Ares camper on the ground was still fighting, which probably left the flag wide open.... Never mind. Nina was battling a Hades camper right next to the flag.

Worth another shot.

"_Let's. Get. Dangerous._"

"Let's," I agreed, and rushed towards Nina and the Hades camper. The Hades kid blocked Nina's lunge and jabbed at her chest. She blocked with her shield and swung her sword at his head, and he just ducked to dodge.

"Hey, fat-ass!" I yelled at him. "Get away from Nina!"

The Hades camper turned his head to glare at me, and Nina took the chance to punch him in the eye and grab the flag.

"_Guess Chiron doesn't know that Athena girls play rough._"

"He doesn't," I agreed. Nina ran past me with the flag, jumping over the fallen Ares camper as she ran.

"Hey everybody!" the Hades camper roared, clutching his eye in pain. "Let's play Kill the Newbie!"

I twitched. "Eh.... Oops?"

"_Run, you idiot!_" Bob roared.

I took Bob's advice and ran like hell, screaming as I dropped my sword. I leaped over the fallen Ares camper and ran after Nina, who was being followed by two Ares campers. The rest of the two battling teams ran after us, towards the creek.

I was going to be screwed over by two of the toughest cabins in camp.

SOS! Save our.... Well, I'm not a ship.

Just save me, damn it.

I leaped over logs, huge fallen branches, everything that was over a foot tall on the ground, shrieking as I ran after Nina.

"_Well, you know you can summon the ghosts, right?_"

"Won't the Hades campers be able to counter?" I asked, pausing mid-shriek.

"_They need to give offerings to summon ghosts, and I think it's Stygian iron that helps them un-summon undead things.... You, on the other hand...._"

"I don't remember how," I muttered.

"_Incantation!_"

I looked up. I could see the creek now, with Nina dashing towards it. Both sides were converging towards the creek, the Blue Team making a desperate attempt to retrieve their flag. The Red Team was launching arrows at a large, burly Hephaestus kid, who was hopping on one foot; his opposite foot and leg were tied together with a rope. A Hermes camper tried to football-tackle him, but the Hephaestus demigod leaped away and towards the creek.

"Worth a shot," I muttered. I racked my mind for the incantation, and turned towards the running campers. They were only a few yards behind me, so I at least had time to say the incantation. "I summon the ghosts of, er, olde, the ghosts of all the demigods that had died before me.... Serve the daughter of the goddess of ghosts and be, ah, rewarded with... peace?"

There was that dull humming in my ears again. I covered them as there were shrieks of laughter from the Blue Team's territory, and ghosts – all below the age of twenty-- flew towards the running Blue Team, shrieking with laughter with their arms outstretched.

"Peace!" one of the ghosts shrieked, grabbing an Ares camper. She shrieked as the ghost pulled her (although the ghost looked like it was fading as soon as it grabbed the girl) back into the woods, kicking and screaming.

I fell to my knees. The world was spinning, and my head throbbed painfully. I began coughing again, putting my hands on the ground to keep myself from falling. My arms were trembling, and I shook with every cough.

"_Look up._"

"Why?" I croaked, pressing my forehead to the ground.

"_You should, or else you'll miss it._"

I looked up slowly, coughing. A holographic image hung above my head; it looked like a transparent figure, with its arms outstretched, pale eyes, and an evil smile.

I laid down, my eyes already half-closed.

I'd been claimed.


	7. Victims 14 and 15

AOG7

"Wake up, kid.... Wake up."

I groaned. Did I go unconscious again?

Reality check. Yes, I did.

"Well, that's good," a voice from above me said, chuckling slightly. "At least she can make some noises.... What was she thinking, summoning all of those ghosts?"

"No clue," responded another. It sounded like a girl's, hard and bitter. "If the kid does that again any time soon, she could kill herself. Not that I'd care, anyway...."

"_You don't have to care about Terra, Leah. I bet you seven drachmas that she'll wake up and yell at you for not caring about her death._"

The girl chuckled. "No bet. She's moving her arm."

I opened both eyes slowly. Two kids (a boy and a girl) stood above me; they both wore black like they were goths, but they had, like, really blond hair, almost like some of the Apollo kids. Both kids were at least seventeen years old, and they looked like identical twins. Their eyes were deep black voids, with a sort of insane twinkle in both eyes.

The girl smiled at me. "Welcome back to earth, Terra. It was nice watching you for three days."

"_That means you've spent only two days conscious at camp!" _Bob said cheerfully.

I scowled. "I guess summoning those ghosts drained me, huh?"

"Drained you?" The boy chuckled. "Not really. More like sent you into the deep depths of your mind, then you got kicked out three days later. What were you thinking, sending all of those ghosts at the Blue Team?"

I stared at him. "I.... I couldn't control how many ghosts I summoned."

"_I can vouch for Terra, Warren. Although, it was epic, watching the Ares campers squirm and scream like pigs._"

The boy grinned. "I agree, Bob. I think the Ares cabin will stay out of the Melinoe cabin for a while."

I stared at him. "The Melinoe cabin?"

"You got claimed by Melinoe, didn't you?" The girl frowned at me. "You know, transparent figure, pale eyes, arms outstretched like the thing wants a hug? Yeah, that's the sign of Melinoe."

"And.... She's the goddess of what?"

"Ghosts, duh!" The boy grinned and raised his arms over his head, beginning to make stereotypical ghost noises. "Ooh, I am the ghost of the Melinoe cabin! Fear me, or else I shall turn you living beings into ghosts!" He threw his head back and cackled.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Shut up, Warren." She turned her head to look at me. "I'm Leah. The annoying one is Warren."

"_And I'm Lindsey!"_ said a really high, annoying five year old's voice.

I looked around. "Who?"

Leah scowled. "She's our younger sister. Died from cancer last year, and since Warren and I were on bad terms with her, Melinoe gave her to us as a, like, guardian."

"_Like Bob!_" Lindsey said in a sing-song voice.

"_Er, kid. You really need to tone it down._" Bob sighed. _"And now I know how you two feel, having to listen to your younger mortal sister everyday. That reminds me; I used to have an annoying little brother just like Lindsey! I think his name was Liam....."_

"Then what was your name?" I asked automatically.

Bob laughed. "_You're a real riot, Terra. Not going to get my name from me so easily._"

Warren chuckled, fingering a necklace around his neck. "Always the smart one, Bob. Anyway, welcome to the Melinoe cabin, and all of that nice crap. Leah's the senior cabin counselor and the older twin, so you can always go to her if you need something...."

Leah rolled her eyes. "Only because you're too lazy, Warren."

"I'm not!"

She rolled her eyes again. "Anyway, you're the youngest member of the Melinoe cabin here: me, you, and Warren, if we don't count the ghosts."

"_But we're every bit as mortal as you!_" Bob whined. "_We can talk!_"

I rolled my eyes and sat up. "But you don't wear clothes. You don't need to eat. We can't slap you."

"_Good point,_" Bob sighed.

Leah looked at her watch. "Well, it's about five in the morning."

"You guys get up at _five_?" My eyes nearly jumped out of their sockets as they scanned the dark room. "Seriously? Everybody wakes up at, like, eight or something in this camp."

Warren chuckled. "Anyway, you'll be following our schedule now. Chiron mashed it up so that we won't be meeting the Ares or Hades cabins; they'll kill you for making them look like frightened kittens."

"_It was awesome!_" Lindsey added.

"By the way," Leah muttered, picking something up off the floor, "this is for you. It was dropped off during Hermes's mail run. Probably a Stygian iron sword; Hermes was delivering them to the Hades cabin too."

"_It is!_" Bob hissed. "_It burns my soul! It burns!_"

Leah rolled her eyes and shoved the sword into my hands. "Take it. It's for you, for one thing, and Warren and I already have ours."

I examined the sword; the sheath was black, and so was the hilt. I grasped the sheath and pulled it down slightly; the blade was black, too. The sword felt just right; it wasn't too light, or too heavy.

"I feel dangerous holding this," I murmured.

"Don't swing it at us," Warren warned. "If you can manage to kill us with it, it will suck our essence away, whatever that means.... Just don't do it."

I grinned and pulled the sheath back over the blade. "I'll probably end up using it on an Ares camper."

"_'Atta girl!_" Bob chuckled.

I looked around the dark room again. Nothing out of the ordinary, except for a strange feeling; I felt like I was being watched. I put the sword down next to me on the bunk.

"You know," Leah muttered quietly, "you haven't been cleared yet, Terra."

I looked at her and frowned. "Cleared for what?"

Warren bit his bottom lip and looked at his sister. "Er.... You know what happened to that poor Hermes camper, right? Victim thirteen?"

I nodded slowly. "Trust me, I had nothing to do with that."

Leah shut her eyes and took a deep breath. "They found him in the cabin like that. You left to go to the bathroom during dinner, remember?"

"I didn't do anything!" I insisted.

"With the ghost episode during Capture the Flag, everybody thinks you did." Leah opened her eyes. "Only a child of Melinoe or Hades could have done that. Warren and I always are at the sword-fighting arena at the time of the happenings with the Aphrodite kids, so we couldn't have done it, and all of the Hades kids were at their cabin during the events; they had just finished a head count when the first victims were discovered. And you were in the mortal world around the time the mortals were struck, and you lived near half the mortal victims...."

"But I really went to the bathroom! And I was at my parents' house when these probably happened in the mortal world!"

Leah sighed. "We can't ask your parents, for one thing, and sometimes you'd disappear out of the house with Nina and Harold during the afternoon; that's when most of the, er, living-to-ghost transitions happened, and Nina and Harold aren't talking."

I waved my hands around madly, groaning. "Why won't anybody believe me?"

"We'll help you clear your name!" Warren popped up behind Leah, wearing a Sherlock Holmes hat. "Detective Warren is on the case!"

Leah flung out her hand, knocking the hat off her brother's head. "Warren, shut up for once. Let's give Terra some space before you try going all Sherlock Holmes on her."

"_Too late," _Bob murmured.

I tried getting out of bed, using the sword as a cane to support myself, but I nearly fell off the bed. "I hate always being unconscious," I grumbled, attempting to pull on my shoes.

Warren chuckled, picking up his hat. "Well, Leah and I can't really summon an army of ghosts, and we're usually half-conscious after summoning five. You summoned how many? Sixty? And Chiron identified them as some campers that died in the Battle of the Labyrinth and kids who died in the forest before the border was put up around camp. I'm surprised you even woke up today."

"What? Should I be dead?"

"Yeah." Leah picked up a black cap from a bunk and plopped it on her head. "Either you're a freak daughter of Melinoe, or you're just really powerful."

"That's basically the same thing," Warren added, pulling out a sword from under another bunk.

I stared at them for a moment. "So.... I'm the living dead?"

"_You can say that!_" Lindsey said.

"Shut up, Lindsey," Leah snapped. "You're a mortal, and a dead one for that matter."

"_I'm telling Mom!_"

Leah scoffed, kicking an old piece of paper under her bunk. "You can't talk to her, you idiot. Do you want her to go to the mental asylum? Even I still love her, old insane shrew that she is."

Warren walked over to me and smacked the side of my head. "Come on, Terra. We're going to practice sword-fighting in the sword-arena."

I twitched. "At this time of hour?"

"We always do," Leah muttered, staring blankly at something on her pillow. She turned and stalked out of the cabin, and with her went the fading voice of Lindsey.

"_Mommy is going to have your head when you come back home in September, Leah! She's not gonna...._"

"_Aye, that kid never shuts up!_" Bob complained. "_I now understand why Melinoe gave the twins Lindsey; the kid annoyed her to death._"

"Isn't Melinoe a goddess?" I asked, frowning as I stood up. I took a hesitant step forward; my knee shook, but I kept walking towards the door with Warren close behind me.

"_Yes. She's like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in one; or is it the other way? Huh, I could never get those names right...._"

"I agree," Warren muttered, grabbing my arm. "Let's go, old lady."

"Hey!" I protested as he pulled me along. I couldn't really have fought back; he was probably six feet tall, which was about two inches taller than his sister and about five for me.

The courtyard was entirely empty, and weirdly quiet. The Athena cabin door was half open, and I caught a glimpse of Nina and her friends talking quietly as they pointed at something on a desk. I looked at Warren, who shrugged.

"They always do that," he whispered, and hurried along to follow his sister, who basically faded in to our dark surroundings (her blond hair gave her away, though).

I swallowed and looked around. Distantly, I could hear whispering from all of the cabins, over the snores of campers and the restless rustling of the trees.

"_My kind of place!_" Bob commented. "_I could get used to this._"

"I can't," I muttered, staring at the ground.

"We're here!" Warren sang, and I looked up.

The sword-fighting arena looked the same (as usual), but it was dark now. The sword rack was neatly put near the shields, although a few swords were missing. I guess the Ares kids stole some for their weapon collection.

Leah stood in the middle of the sword arena, staring blankly at some dummies. As Warren and I entered, she looked up and managed a faint smile. "Welcome to the sword arena at five a.m."

"Looks nice," I commented sarcastically.

"_It's pretty!_" Lindsey said.

Warren rolled his eyes and let go of my arm. "Fail, Lindsey. Now, shut up and go away."

"_She can't,_" Bob muttered bitterly. "_She's like your consciousness; she'll never leave you alone, just like I can't leave Terra alone._"

"It'll be wonderful when you stop talking," I muttered, rubbing my arm where Warren had gripped it. Damn, he was _strong_.

"_Fine. Be that way!_"

Leah looked at the dummies in front of her, and drew her Stygian iron sword. "Let's see.... I'll imagine this one is the Ares cabin's senior counselor...." She pointed her sword at the poor dummy. "This one can be that stupid Apollo kid who keeps flirting with me.... And then this one can be Warren."

"Hey!" he protested. "I'm right here, you know!"

Leah smiled crookedly. "Oh, I know, all right."

"_Sadistic much?_" Bob muttered.

Leah raised her sword, and smashed off the Apollo kid dummy's head with one blow. "_This _is for flirting with me yesterday...."

I flinched and took a step back. "Does she always do this?"

Warren nodded silently.

Great. So I had a really violent chick for a cabin counselor and an older half-sister. Wonderful.

Leah stabbed the Ares cabin counselor's dummy in the chest and tore upward with the sword, muttering things to herself as the straw flew everywhere. She blinked for a few moments, and stabbed the Warren dummy in the eye slit of its helmet. She withdrew her sword and turned to us, smiling. "You guys want a round?"

"Of what?" Warren frowned, tilting his head to the side. "A round of beer pong? A round of basketball? A round o--"

"A round of fighting," Leah interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "You're really stupid, Warren."

"Well, excuse me for being the video game geek!"

The two siblings began to argue back and forth, so I tiptoed out of the sword-fighting arena as they argued, listening to them argue before running back to the Melinoe cabin.

I really wanted to get some sleep, even though I'd been unconscious for three days.

I reached the Melinoe cabin door in record time, but one glance inside and I began to hesitate. It was really dark, and as soon as I opened the door and poked my head in, the feeling of misery and dread filled my mind. It was like a ghost was here; probably a ghost that was miserable in life, and it wanted others to feel its pain.

Then again, it was the goddess of ghosts' cabin.

I swallowed, and walked in, shutting the door behind me with my foot. My sword still was on my bunk, but otherwise the place looked deserted. I swallowed and walked towards my bunk, holding out my hand to grasp the sword.

"_Hello._"

I jumped, and turned towards the doorway. A girl in a pale dress, with funny glowing green eyes, stood in the doorway. I instantly recognized her as the girl from a week or so ago, when Nina, Harold, and I broke into the old abandoned house.

"You again?" I snarled angrily, and grabbed the sword off my bunk. "What are you, stalking me?"

The little girl chuckled. "_No. I honestly don't know where you got that idea. Do you know who I am, Terra?_"

"_Obviously not her father_," Bob muttered.

I blinked, all anger fading from my mind like dust on a windy day. "Er, your name is Emily, right?"

The girl smiled. "_Bingo, but do you know who I really am?_"

"Not like I want to."

Her eye twitched, and the smile faded from her transparent face. "_You remember that little girl that used to live next door to you, and that suddenly she went poof?_"

I tilted my head to the side. "Poof? Like, disappeared poof?"

"_Yes._"

"Er, yeah. Why?"

"_I was that girl," _she hissed at me. "_You never were nice to me! When I wanted to play hide and seek with you and those other two kids, you always said no!_"

I stifled a chuckle. "So is that why you're here? To lecture me about letting other kids play hide and seek?"

"_No._" Emily smiled, and her glowing green eyes glowed even brighter. "_Melinoe says that all ghosts who haven't made peace with a certain someone can return to the earth to make their peace with them. So, here I am."_

I waved my hand. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. I make my peace with you, O spirit from the world beyond ours, blah blah blah. And sorry for not letting you play hide and seek with me. I was an idiot back then." I rolled my eyes.

Emily smiled faintly again. "_I knew you would say that. Ah well. I'll make my peace with you by warning you about something happening right now...._"

That really caught my attention. My wandering eyes looked back at Emily intently. "About what?"

"_There are many cabins around here_," Emily began, "_and everybody is asleep._"

"Well, duh. It's about five-thirty in the morning."

She rolled her eyes. "_Yes, but there is one place.... One place where two kids are not asleep. They are arguing.... And then a mysterious figure with a golden shawl has approached them._"

I eyed the ghost cautiously. "Are you trying to tell me a story?"

"_This is happening right now,"_ Emily muttered. "_The figure is not female like it should be, and the two kids look at the figure. The figure tells them that the camp will slowly be reduced in number thanks to the shawl, and grins evilly. One of the two kids in the place immediately recognizes who this is, and tries to get an explanation. The other one – the smarter and older one of the two-- runs off to warn somebody.... And the other one falls to the ground._"

I froze. "That sounds like...."

"_Leah and Warren_," Bob completed. "_You'd better go and check up on those two._"

"_I'm not done!_" Emily snarled. "_The figure then approaches the running one. She trips over a misplaced shield, and tries to crawl away. Then, she stops and is limp. The figure picks her up and places her next to the other fallen one, and is gone._"

"That's it!" I growled, and ran past Emily and towards the sword arena. Those kids sounded like Leah and Warren to me.

"Leah! Warren! Lindsey!" I called as I ran through the courtyard. I could see the sword-fighting arena in the distance, and ran faster. "Leah! Warren! Somebody answer me!"

I ran through the entrance of the sword-fighting arena.

Leah and Warren were on the ground. Their eyes were still wide, and Leah looked stunned.

"Leah? Warren?" I asked in a small voice, approaching them slowly.

They didn't move.

Both of their right hands were palm-up.

Warren had a "14" cut into his hand, and Leah had a "15".

Victims fourteen and fifteen were the cabin mates I had known for only a few minutes.


	8. How Selfish

AOG8

I'd really like to say that when Chiron trotted in with some Athena kids, I went to him calmly to tell him what happened. Instead, when they walked in, I was running around in a circle while panicking and shrieking about golden shawls and men wearing them.

While the Athena kids moved the bodies to the Big House, Chiron pulled me aside, frowning. His t-shirt, which read "Ponies Don't Drink Root Beer", was the only thing I saw as I stared blankly at him. "Terra, what happened?"

I just shook my head.

"_Spit it out, kid,_" Bob urged. "_I can't sense Lindsey anywhere. Maybe she went down with the twins._"

Chiron put a gentle hand on my shoulder. "Terra, we need to eliminate you from our list of suspects."

I shook my head again. "And what? Everybody already thinks I'm doing this because I'm the only kid in this camp without an alibi. I have no evidence to support me."

Chiron sighed, shaking his head. "You can't possibly gather the evidence you need. You need to find out who is doing this – unless you are, of course."

I scowled, wrenching my shoulder away from Chiron's grasp. "Oh, so now you think I did it, horse man? Whose side are you on?"

Chiron stared at me, and his look was that of an angry old man's. "None," he said finally. "I am on no side. I only want to find out who is doing this to the demigods and mortals, and stop them before they discover how to make the gods turn into ghosts themselves."

I narrowed my eyes. "How many mortal victims have there been, Chiron?"

Chiron wrinkled his nose. "None, since you first arrived at camp. But six in total. Nine demigods."

"Can I talk to Nina?"

"_Sure, talk to the chick who could probably prove you did it."_

I rolled my eyes and muttered, "Shut up, Bob."

Chiron looked over at one of the Athena kids, trying to pick up the six-foot tall Warren with a seven year old girl and a really short twelve year old boy. "Howard, go get Nina for me!"

"And Harold Van Horn," I added.

Chiron eyed me cautiously before calling out, "And Harold Van Horn! He's at the Mess Hall with the dryads."

The Athena kid nodded, dropping one of Warren's legs, saluted Chiron, and ran off.

Chiron sighed, and turned back to me. "I hope you know what you're doing, Terra. Nina and Harold might not be of much help at all."

I folded my arms across my chest, tapping my foot impatiently. "Of course I do, Chiron. Nina and Harold will help me through this."

Nina and Harold arrived a few moments later, looking tired (since it was only six in the morning). Chiron trotted away to help the Athena kids pick up Warren, while Nina and Harold lumbered over.

"Yes, Terra?" Harold asked. He rubbed his eyes, yawning.

I grabbed Harold's arm. "Do you know how to drive?"

His eyes widened slightly. "Er, no. But my daddy goat does."

Nina narrowed her eyes, touching her belt. "What are you planning, Terra? Some sort of escape plan?"

I nodded enthusiastically. "Yes. We're going to go to the Underworld."

Harold and Nina paled simultaneously. "B-b-but Terra," Harold stammered, "that's virtually impossible. We probably won't be able to get in and out without dying."

"Chiron would never let us out of camp for that," Nina added. "He wants everybody to stay in camp now."

"My mom is goddess of ghosts, and she gets in and out of there all the time," I told them, shrugging. "Says Wikipedia, anyway. Maybe we could use her way in and out of the Underworld."

"Melinoe's cave is the worst way," Nina murmured. "Too many ghosts lurk there. And then your mom shows mortals or demigods who go anywhere near her cave the ghosts of people they had never made peace with..." She shuddered.

"We should stay here," Harold muttered. "I-I don't want to get anywhere near your mom, Terra. Not since..." His voice trailed off.

"Since what?" I demanded. "What happened?"

Nina shook her head. "Don't tell her, Harold. It will just make Terra even more determined."

"I don't want to be framed anymore," I told Harold. "You can tell me."

Harold shut his eyes, and bleated. "Melinoe's shawl was stolen a month ago. Ghost-production has been reduced dramatically, and Chiron thinks the shawl is what is causing all of the living-to-ghost transitions. After all, the shawl is what Melinoe uses to control her ghosts..."

"Then we're getting my mom's shawl back," I told them confidently, then frowned. "Wait... What the hell does it look like?"

Nina elbowed Harold hard in the ribcage. "It's golden, for one thing."

"Emily told me that," I muttered.

"Who?"

"Nobody you'd know," I replied. "But somebody told me that a figure wearing a gold shawl turned Warren and Leah into ghosts. I think that shawl is my mom's."

Nina raised an eyebrow. "Well, how are you sure that what this 'somebody' said was correct? For all you know, it could have been Chiron talking to them."

"The figure was male," I recalled, "and the 'somebody' who told me said that he was somebody Leah and Warren recognized. But I don't think it's Chiron."

Harold folded his arms across his chest. "Well, then who is it?"

"Whoever has the shawl must be the one who is turning everybody into ghosts," Nina concluded. "I'm sure of it. It has to be a demigod or monster; no god can take each other's symbol of power. Chiron would never do that, so he's off our list, since he can't wear shawls. Makes him too sweaty, he claims."

"Has to be a demigod," Harold muttered, glancing at Chiron. "Monsters are too stupid to figure out how the shawl would work. Has to be someone smart, like one of Athena's kids." He glanced at Nina, whose expression had darkened, and added, "Doesn't have to be one of Athena's kids, though."

Nina grunted. "Whatever. Now, how are we going to get to the Underworld? Melinoe's way, to be exact."

I shrugged. "No idea."

"Then why the hell did you suggest going Melinoe's way?"

I lowered my eyes to my shoes. "Er, I don't know. Maybe because my mom would probably let us through?"

Harold bleated. "I don't want to go anywhere near her. She's probably going to chop my head off."

I held up my sword, and he flinched and took a step back. "I don't think so. With me there, my mom wouldn't chop a person's head off."

"You don't know Melinoe," Nina muttered uneasily. "But we'll go with you. Isn't that right, Harold?"

Harold bleated again, his eyes darting about. "Do I have to go?"

Nina glared at him. "Do you want me to ask Grover Underwood, or should I-"

"No, no..." Harold bleated, laughing nervously. "I-I think I'll go. You know, protect you two and such. 'Cause I've gotta be a man... A goat-man, that is."

I rolled my eyes, grinning. "Then get packed. We're going on a road trip."

It took Nina and Harold only a few minutes to pack a bag. I just walked to Thalia's Tree and stood there, waiting with my sword. I didn't have anything to pack, except for the things I wore; Nina had promised me that she'd pack a change of clothes for me, since I couldn't buy anything from the store, and Harold was just bringing a bag of soda cans and food.

I was about to fall asleep when a hand slapped my shoulder. I looked up. "Nina?"

Nina grinned, and held up her flash drive sword. "Yup." She glanced nervously behind her. "I hope Chiron doesn't notice we're gone..."

"Well, I couldn't care less," I muttered. "He's probably going to just lecture us. After all, we're doing this for a good reason."

"Nina! Terra!" shrieked an angry voice. Nina and I looked up. Chiron was charging at us, scowling angrily while Harold ran behind him, yelling excuses like "We need to find some more toilet paper!" and "Nina left her favorite teddy bear at home, so we're going to get it!"

Nina sighed. "I knew Harold wouldn't keep his mouth shut."

"Please, Chiron!" Harold shouted over the noise of running hooves. "Terra needs a chance to prove everybody wrong! We can't let her be framed for this!"

"_Joy_," Bob muttered. "_You're gonna get killed by an angry centaur. Hey, look, it's Harold's daddy-goat and his car!_"

"Yay!" I threw my arms up into the air like a little girl, earning a weird look from Nina. An old, red-going-on-gray truck was pulling up to the hill, with a man who had a sort of resemblance to Harold in the driver's seat. He wore a plaid jacket with the sleeves torn off at the elbows, showing off really hairy arms, and a lollipop stick in his mouth. He had a brown beard, and was wearing a snow cap on his head, probably to hide his horns. (Weren't satyrs supposed to be saving nature, not polluting? Ah well, we were desperate.)

"Daddy!" Harold yelled, waving his arms frantically as he ran alongside Chiron, who just scowled and charged towards us.

Nina yelped, and shoved me down the hill. I fell and began rolling down, like a barrel (as Harold would say), shrieking, "Nina, I'm going to- ow! Shit, my leg!"

I put my arm out and stopped the rolling, wincing as I jumped to my feet. There was a four-inch long rip in my jeans, and a three inch cut showing on my leg.

Nina jogged down the hill, like there wasn't an angry centaur running for us. "Get up. We need to leave Harold here."

"_Crazy bitch is crazy!_" Bob muttered. "_Leave behind your nature guide? Insane._"

"We can't," I insisted. "Chiron's gonna interrogate Harold and then he'll know where we're headed and attempt to get somebody to stop us. A god, maybe."

Nina snorted. "Are you kidding me? Most of them are hiding in Olympus."

"We can't leave Harold. If he stays, I stay."

She stared at me, wide-eyed. "So, you _want_ to get in trouble? Just for Harold?"

"I'm pretty desperate, but I'm not going to be ruthless." I looked up the hill, as Chiron began charging down. Harold was clinging to his back, pleading with him to stop and listen to him.

Like that would work.

Harold's dad beeped the truck's horn. "Let's go, girls! And Harold. I don't have all day. Nature is a-waiting."

"Harold!" I yelled. "You know what Nina's brother always says. Do a barrel roll!"

Harold stared at me for a moment as Nina and I made a mad dash for the truck, and nodded. With a sigh, he grabbed Chiron's sides and threw himself to the side, like he was trying to make Chiron turn right.

Instead, they both went down, Chiron on his side with Harold's leg stuck under him, just as I grabbed the door handle of the truck. Harold muttered something (probably "Sorry"), pulled his leg out from under Chiron, and ran for the truck as Nina and I piled in.

"_You're screwed, Terra. Just needed to throw that out there._"

I nodded, watching as Harold leaped into the truck like he was James Bond trying to escape in an epic way. He shut the door, and Harold's dad drove off, leaving behind an angry Chiron and a few bystanders as we left the scene. Of a crime? Maybe not.

Only if it's illegal to run away from camp to clear your name of a crime.

Nina was dozing off next to me during the car ride, while Harold was chewing empty can after empty can of soda. I was staring out the window, watching as the trees rapidly passed (I saw a few dryads, too) while Bob rambled on about how much trouble I was going to be in if I went back to camp.

"_... and do you know what we used to do to campers who left camp? The camp director – who wasn't Dionysus back in my day- would cast them into the woods and set a few hellhounds free in there. Never saw half of them again. If Dionysus weren't a lazy bum, he'd probably..."_

I'd stopped listening after the "he'd probably" part, mainly because I didn't care. My freaking half-siblings were ghosts now, and now I was screwed in several ways. Chiron would kill me and Harold when we got back (don't know about Nina). Dionysus probably would make my death real, real painful. The dryads in camp... What would they do?

Oh yeah. Kill me for getting Harold to get his dad to drive us somewhere.

Pollution. It's serious business, yo.

I hugged myself, sighing.

"_Are you listening to me, young lady? Is there no respect for your elders anymore?"_

I frowned. "You're just a bodiless voice."

"_So? I'm _way _older than you. Maybe a few centuries older."_

"Uh-huh." I scratched my nose. "Right, right."

Nina, who had been awoken from her doze by a bump in the road, furrowed her eyebrow at me. "Are you alright, Terra?"

I shot an angry look at her. "Fine. I'm awesome. Thanks for asking."

"Look, Terra, this isn't your fault. I don't think you turned anybody into a ghost." Nina settled back in her seat, staring at the back of Harold's dad's seat. "Well, I hope so."

I snorted, glaring out the window. "You hope so. I really didn't do it. Why won't anybody believe me?"

"Because you're one of the only _known _Melinoe kids."

Harold spat out a mouthful of tin can into a bag. "Yeah. Nobody would dare accuse Hades's kids, and Melinoe's kids... Well, they're plain-out scary."

I scoffed. "Thanks. That statement made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside."

Nina held up her hands. "Look, Terra, don't take this the wrong way, but-"

"Well, I _am!_" I snapped. "Whenever somebody tells another person not to take something the wrong way, that person does! Are you freaking kidding me?" I slammed my fist against the window. "If you guys don't believe me, then I'll just leave."

Harold paled. "Wait, what?"

"You heard me, Llama. If you don't believe me, I'll just get out of the car."

Nina scowled. "Don't be an idiot, Terra-"

"Mr. Van Horn, sir, can you pull over?" I asked him. Harold's dad grunted at me.

"You sure you wanna do that, missy?" His voice was gruff, probably because he was cranky that he had to drive so much. "Monsters could getcha. People aren't so friendly these days."

"Yessir," I replied, saluting him Army-style.

Nina grabbed my arm, shaking it like, er, a water bottle full of Kool-Aid powder. "Are you freaking serious? You're going to get freaking _killed_ out there! Every god is pissed at you. Well, except for Melinoe, she might be enjoying this."

I scowled. "Yeah. You're such a good friend."

"Come _on_, Terra!"

My eye twitched. I opened my mouth to respond, when Bob shrieked, _"Look out! Major... Uh... What _is_ that?"_

Nina and I turned our attention to the front car window (and I don't know what it's actually called). A large, black mass of fur the size of a tank was flipping cars upside down, while somebody was yelling, "Find her! Find that stupid child and bring her to me! In pieces, if you will."

"Damn it," Harold's dad grumbled. "A hellhound, and it looks like somebody else, too... I s'ppose this means you aren't going to pay me for this. Get out of the car, all of you. I'll stay behind and run them over."

"But Daddy!" Harold protested. "You're gonna die..."

Mr. Van Horn gave Harold a sly look. "There's a brick or two under your foot for emergency purposes. Give them to me, then all of you get out of the car. Then run."

Harold paled. "B-but-"

"Harold, I'm not gonna die."

"Harold!" Nina and I hissed.

Harold swallowed, picking up a red-ish brick at his feet (hooves). He handed it to his dad, as Nina and I opened the car door and scrambled out, towards a very promising looking alleyway.

The hellhound swung its head towards us. The thing on the back screeched, "There she is! Get her, Fluffy!"

Barking, the hellhound began to run towards the truck.

I don't know what happened then. All I saw when I turned around was Harold running towards us, and his dad leaping out of the car as it sped towards Fluffy the hellhound, who barked and probably tried to run over it. Sadly, it didn't work that way; I guessed that the car hit one of its legs, because it had face-planted on the ground, growling angrily.

I didn't watch anymore. I ran into the alleyway with Harold, not bothering to check on Harold's dad.

"_How selfish of you, Terra._"

**A/N: Not my best chapter... But I hope my next one will be better. :P Thanks for reading.**


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